Look at me - 66 years old, lost the love of my life after decades of marriage to a shocking and sudden death, then COVID (steadfastly unjabbed), during which the just-18-year-old dog died. My late husband and I had her since she was 8 weeks old.
Major, maximally-invasive lung surgery coming next month, and I have to monitor 2 brain tumors.
Took the opportunity to make up a long coolness with my sister, took a vacation to visit her and her new husband, and my BFF of over 50 years (and her family).
I'm still optimistic about humanity, my life - and tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on.
Here's to human beings - there's nothing more horrifying or heartbreaking than watching each member of our species digest those bites of the apple.
Forgot to add, self-published 2 novels (my first - I'd only had a few poems published, many years ago) after age 60 - love letters to small-town Maine (where I live) from a native Manhattanite (you'd have to pay me a LOT to set foot there nowadays!).
Thanks for all the positive responses - and the prayers. I have a loooooong list, but I add "bless everyone who has prayed for me" before I move on to "bless this country," the Revolutionary battlefields of which the blood in my own veins watered. Also had an ancestor on the Maine committee to advise on potential amendments to the proposed Constitution.
You know, after reading your comment again, perhaps this is a better link to offer. I first read this around age 30 and think it should be required reading for everyone. Either way, you’re in my thoughts and prayers.
I don’t know who you are, but I hope you know your presence on earth has blessed others. Here’s to the hope of miracles, granting you health to continue your human journey here on earth, for many more years.
That's what I'm hoping for, but if it's not to be, I've had a wild, fun ride, and I hope I've shared some of God's love while here. I know I've touched lives, and have had mine touched by many. I'm very blessed, either way.
I've loved greatly, achieved quietly but satisfactorily, and had tons of reward, though mostly of the non-material sort - but those are the best ones.
God bless you. Thank you for your optimism and your will to just continue. I’ve been through an immense amount of grief in my life - even in just the last year, but I feel resolute in my drive to LIVE. Capital L live. We need each others wisdom and optimism.
True words! I want t see what comes next. I want more time with my family and friends, more time to read, more time to cook and enjoy the food, more time to look at the beautiful river at the bottom of the hill I live on, more autumns to see the leaves change.
The support of others' goodwill and love - and yes, wisdom and optimism, is a great source of inestimable benefit.
Ellen, your comment was very moving and relatable. I became a widow at 53 when my dear husband died suddenly. It was a real struggle to go on with life, and then I lost my father and mother in the following two years. Strangely, the loss of the little dog that I had adopted with my deceased husband seemed to put an end to the worst of my grief. I did move on and found a new soul mate six years ago, as well as a beautiful granddaughter who was born nine months to the day after the death of my husband. It does not sound like you need any suggestions to improve your attitude. In all sincerity, God bless you!
But I eat what I want and I hope I'll die like a woman! Pulled pork all last week (cooked that stuff over 12 hours very slowly after searing), with coleslaw and pickles, as well as homemade smoked peach bourbon maple barbecue sauce.
Yes, like Sisyphus, I am struggling back up the mountain of optimism endeavoring to reach the summit before I transition into the awaiting realm......Lucky you for staying on top of it and not descending to the mountain's base.....it is an arduous return. Perhaps I should dump the Rock I am trying to scale up the surface with me? Hey !....that's a thought....get rid of the baggage.
Dealing with my husband's death was very hard, I won't say otherwise. But I wanted to get to a better place. Same with my parents' deaths, many years before.
There are sad times, ane if I'm spared, I will undoubtedly know more of them - but I have got past any pessimism long ago.
There's a saying I heard from my boss - "the obstacle is the way." Accept, climb, enjoy the view, and the journey. Even when it's hard, even when it's painful, even then, there are things one can find pleasure and hope in - especially if you have people you love who love you.
True, true...I have weathered it all very well until my eldest son died recently, which has been overwhelming....but 'this too shall pass'...a loss unlike any other....looking forward to the view from the summit. Keep the courage.
I am so very sorry for your loss, Susan. I rather think losing a child must be the worst of losses of loved ones - the older generation, in the natural course of events, predeceases the younger, one's contemporaries may go sooner than one does one's self, but surely the death of the young, while their progenitor(s) live, must outrage the senses.
Again, I am so very sorry, and I applaud your courage, too. Please keep striving to live with the loss - we never "get over" them, they just become part of our lives, every day. Sometimes we remember happily, even.
And just maybe, in embracing joys, we honor the joys our gone-before loved ones gave us.
Mother Earth though isn't just a passive survivor. It has defended itself from dangerous species in the past. To paraphrase George Carlin, the Earth will be fine; it's humans that are fucked.
The hating ourselves and hating humanity is not real. It's all just virtue signaling by self-appointed moral police of today so they can feel they're holier than everyone else. Pay them no mind. They don't deserve the time of our day.
I don’t think they are explicit about their hatred…only that it is implied by their actions and rhetoric. a person whom hates themselves will project unto others that same hatred. this can manifest in the hatred of strength or the hatred of weakness.
how else can you explain those who believe the human race is a virus upon the earth? that we are a stain upon creation, a parasite who takes and never gives.
this is the voice of Satan, the accuser of sin and the enemy of mankind.
Gentlemen/Ladies: It's a time commitment but this N.S. Lyons report on YouTube (in my opinion) demystifies and explains the forces assaulting our Republic exactly. (Hope I got the link right.) THE CHINA CONVERGENCE
Good point. Does the evolution of human intelligence naturally lead to hatred of our species? Seems that way. We’ve been behind the curve as many countries have expressed hatred for the West long before it became cool here. If Mother Earth had her say she would have visited every biblical disaster on Washington DC, the epicenter of earth’s evildoers.
Our planet will remain well after we plunder it and vaporize every living thing on it. Then the process starts over again.
no. the hatred is not a result of evolution of mankind. its art of war by the elites. if they can get us to fight each other, they can do what they want while we're distracted.
Doomsday cult, reaching a peak during economic turmoil. You were getting by in 2019,and today your in a food bank line up. But why are the upper class elites buying into scarcity fears? Maybe it's aging and knowing billions doesn't stop decay and death.
"Here I saw a little girl a few rows below whispering to Mom, “We’re gonna die?”
Isn't this about what our educators have been doing to our children since the hoax of climate change was introduced to a gullible world? Now we have millions of people and many of them children all worried there is no future unless we destroy ourselves first with the sort of policies pushed by the Democrat party i.e. the ignominious "Green New Deal" wrapped in the nonsense of inflation reduction act which is drowning us in debt and making the same few very rich. And secondly from the division it has caused (climate change denial) that is used by the propaganda machines in academia and MSM to beat all the dissenters into conformity leading us to the sort dystopian images referred to be Taibbi.
Last night on the evening news I watched video of homes being “washed away by the sea due to climate change” (but due mostly to the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers would no longer spend the millions for beach replenishment to save homes that probably shouldn’t have been built there in the first place). The media propaganda envelops us. It’s no wonder that the UN has recently decided to concentrate their “educational” efforts on children. To the little girl: “of course you’re going to die, unless you do what you’re told”.
Alas, it's not just children. There are many millions of people who will cast a vote for a woman they don't know, aren't sure they remember liking, and who has more platitudes than a used car salesman. Because they have been told to.
I mean, you could have just said “of course you’re going to die!”
That is the truth. My son is 4 and knows this. He has witnesses sheep be slaughtered and chickens too. He has witnessed hundreds of years old trees fall. He sees the beauty with the loss and that is by design. That IS life. Everything we love we will lose. We have forgotten how to hold the grief as a society.
So yes, little one, you will one day die. But aren’t the flowers beautiful?
This kind of pusilanimous manipulation of the young, the destruction of their natural dreams, in many ways the stealing of their childhood, is one of the things that makes me truly and deeply angry. It's right up there with a certain kind of bullying.
I've come to really despise a certain cultural element in education. It's also telling what many of those people are themselves like (Yes, they really all seem to have weird unaesthetic hair colors and noserings).
How true! They're using Greta Thunberg to scare the crap out of kids. Add to this, the hypersexualizing of children with drag shows in kindergarten and then discombobulating them with "gender dysphoria". I'm 60, and being an adolescent in the analog era was already difficult as hell. Any kid that can stay sane today must be the Buddha.
Son had to do a geo essay on tidal power. Every paper we found said its not practical with today's tech. I knew what the teacher wanted, forced him to put a blurb about future progress. She wanted an example - should have made up an example
We need more people who are unafraid to speak the truth and every year the truth becomes harder to find because truth no longer sets you free it is likely to land you in jail.
We seemed to have reached the nadir when that repellent little troll screeched her guts out at a grovelling, hand-wringing UN audience. She would have made a nice wife for J.R.R. Tolkien's Gollum....
Some people cannot see the world in front of them. Where did gigatons of CO2 go? Is it a reactive gas or chemically inert? Basic science education leads one to know that CO2 is a problem because of its physical-chemical properties. The central question is how much of a problem is it?
The hyperbolic nonsense of "destroying ourselves first" is nonsense. It is also utter nonsense to espouse a doctrine of science denial. Seriously, do you think the bean-counters in the fossil fuel care about tomorrow? I recall only too well the disinformation campaign surrounding smoking. The mortality from lung cancer has decreased from 70 per 100,000 in 1990 to 35 per 100,000 in 2018. Chemicals that bound to DNA (anthracenes) do cause cancer.
Climate science is a science. Bloviating about the "hoax of climate change" just lines the pockets of the dying fossil fuel industry. Fortunately, the market is already deciding and the future is not in fossil fuels, the money is moving.
"Some people cannot see the world in front of them."
From your comments I take it you are referring to yourself. What kind of science is it? Based on the wildly skewed computer models and theories, it appears like a science that's been abused by hucksters like you, Rick. Does it really line the pockets of the fossil fuel industry? I hardly think so. The future is not in wind mills and electric power which requires vast amounts of fossil fuel to achieve any semblance of efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness. It enriches the hucksters who profit on the backs of tax payers while under delivering on phony promises.
Until a real, efficient solution is found, it’s fossil fuels that drive the modern just like they are needed to produce alternatives, you know the “sustainable” shit the enviros claim. The problem is not peak oil, but rather extraction costs. There is still plenty, just more expensive. Now is the time rethink the path forward and wind mills and solar panels are not that sustainable path. Wouldn’t you agree, feldspar?
It’s not one that eliminates fossil fuels. Funny, so like is to swing from one extreme to the other thereby suggesting the correct answer is total elimination. I still believe we are a nation of people that can and will be resourceful. I’m seeing nuclear having a comeback.
Where are you that you haven't been massively affected by climate change?
Where I grew up, when I was a child, I remember feet of snowfall every year. Snow that would stay on the ground for weeks due to low temperatures.
Now it's normal for there to only be a handful of days of snowfall, maximum a few inches, and it all melts within a day or two.
My family used to be able to drive to a literally a dozen different small ski resorts. Now they have all closed because there is simply no snow.
At the same time, most of the families I grew up with did not have air conditioning in their houses. But now the number of days in the summer where the temperature is over 100 degrees has been steadily climbing and air conditioning is almost a necessity. More and more people die every year due to excessive heat.
So yeah, I'm wondering where you live where you can't observe climate change happening with your own eyes and brain.
So you took issue with the quote "some people can't see the world in front of them" but we seem to agree that the world in front of us is: climate change.
So my point was that the world is obviously getting hotter in very visible ways, and you point me to an article that essentially says that's a GOOD thing?
I mean, yeah, if you're talking about somewhere that might benefit in certain ways from being hotter, sure.
There are now places e.g. in India where the wet bulb temperature is getting close to 100 degrees F, meaning that in the near future, it's conceivable that they will be too hot to sustain human life. Maybe ask them what they think about global warming.
Your operative word being "bean counters". They have always been the life blood of totalitarian regimes. Human moral reason, as enshrined in our Republic's Constitution, is the athetesis of the corporate sterility now attempting to reduce the peoples of the free world to automatons. "Green" or "dirty oil" isn't the problem. It is the capture and prevention of the healthy American national conversation capable of creating workable solutions to the problems so both can be exploited for gain and profit. Hence the internet crackdown, the assault on free speech and the sudden appearance of "terrorist" thought crime. Meanwhile, day by day, the greatest upward transfer of wealth in human history continues unabated. No solutions forthcoming.
Simply: An immoral clique of billionaire totalitarians with the help of the vacuous "bean counters" they employ have decided to seize control of the worlds resources and enslave its peoples. Proof? Who is in control of the American Constitutional Republic? The crippled and manipulated Joe Biden? The cackling horror K.Harris? Things are not all right. The perps can rationalize any atrocity. Depart the psyop and live.
Respectfully, MR, you need to read more widely for sure. "bean counters" imply "totalitarian regimes"? Bean counters are the life-blood of every organization on the planet. Without them your local Big Brothers or Chik Fil A's or school boards would go broke, brother. "corporate sterility", or Free Market as our founding father's preferred, have delivered in 500 years, across the globe, a humanity that is thriving in ways humans couldn't even fathom for their previous 250 Thousand years of existence on the planet. Likely, within 15 years it will virtually eliminate Extreme Poverty as defined by the World Bank! (https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief) Since 1970 nearly 10% of the American Middle class has disappeared...because they moved into the upper middle class (https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/). Proof. Feel free to site your sources. Peace before polarization.
"Bean-counters" who at the behest of rigged game hustlers place profit and the bottom line above human freedom, dignity, and culture are as old as time. Hitler's bureaucracy was known for its meticulous record keeping. The Communists are known for billing families the price of the bullet used to execute their loved ones. After the conflagration: "Gee--I was just following orders."
No one has a problem with free markets and capitalism. The question is: Why the sudden call for Americans to accept the suppression of free speech, incarceration for wrong think and the suspension of civil liberties? It's the same A-Bomb rattling pathological narcissism that nearly burned the world to the ground in the 20th Century?
To your point, Cato.org has begun to publish, in analog and digitally, a new quarter: Free Society. This quarter's cover story is on point: "Cult of the Presidency; America's Pathological Relationship with Executive Power". It argues well that throughout the past, in particular the past 30 years, we the people have chosen to vote for an Executive who can do everything imaginable for us, and so we attract narcissists who promise they can. Of course, they cannot. It is the first time in my 64 years I've had doubts that the Madisonian system can survive. Peace.
Matt's co-"defendant at the congressional hearing with the Wasserman-Shultz/Plaskett Experience did this incredible video "Escaping the Woke Matrix". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7iWsDYnJ8&t=55s. It thoroughly debunks Climate ChangeTM.
If you watch that, you may realize that it is YOU who cannot see the world in front of them.
And the market is deciding daily that fossil fuels are going to be around for a long time. You'll see this when you can see the world in front of you.
For all the politcally correct doomsaying, crickets about the real and present danger to both us and Mother Earth as our enemies around the globe threaten to meet our arrogance with their nuclear arsenal.
We are stardust, ultimately; we are the Universe itself become conscious. Like the expanding galaxies rushing from us, we too trace our beginning in the instant of the big bang.
Miracles... in such simple things. Sitting in my backyard with a small bonfire in the pit, sipping on a beer as the evening falls, cradling my puppy asleep on my lap while my love and I discuss whatever we want...
It's STILL the best comment I've read because it's so true. It's all inside of you. Just look. Or as Rumi said, "The wound is how the light enters you".
Loved the picture you painted in your comment. I wasn't born yet when the song came out, but I read those three words and immediately thought of it. I was going to finish the next lines, but Patrick and company beat me to it! :)
Where in Manhattan? I grew up in 'da Bronx'. Yeah; I'm a freaking cliche- Bronx Irish Catholic from the Parkchester area.
I attended HS in the UWS (87th & West End- it's now luxe condos). I left NYC in the '80's and moved to Canada. I now live and thrive in Kingston, Ontario.
Cool. I used to ride the subway to Yankee Stadium for games, back in my youth.
I grew up on East 18th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues. In the apartment part of which was used for Barbra Streisand's character's flat in The Way We Were, after we moved 2 1/2 blocks west, to the corner of 18th and Irving Place. Right across from Pete's Tavern. Leonard Bernstein's son, eventually, lived upstairs, and I ran into the Great Man Himself quite a few times on those stairs. Also saw him conducting a rehearsal at Lincoln Center on a school trip.
Have you seen Maestro? I really think Bradley Cooper got both the sides I saw in person - the grand, ambitious, passionate maestro, and the very private, not terribly happy person I met on the stairs.
Also met Bill Murray, dining al fresco at the restaurant downstairs from us.
One thing Lenny always regretted was not developing into enough of a composer to be recognized for that, and not "just" a great conductor. Maybe this was part of what you saw.
Short and sweet. Hope Rescue the Republic is a smashing success. People are amazing. The mopers who are smearing you in the comments section of the Substack Election Dialogues, not so much: https://read.substack.com/p/a-better-digital-polis/comments
Holy crap Yuri! That was like going to Oz. It's a make believe land where Tulsi is a Russian AgentTM and Taibbi is a right winger. I felt like I'd entered an insane asylum and I live in the SF Bay Area!!
Mr. Bezmenov, as I read this piece I actually thought of your framing of the psychological attack on The West (demoralization, etc). Very cogent! More people should listen to your witness.
Dude, I'm so far "left" I'm barely sane. Meaning I believe in "Power to the People" and absolutely no war unless our back is against the wall. Get money out of politics. Absolute free speech. Healthcare for all.
Today, this puts me right into Hillary's 47% "Basket of Deplorables", with all of you guys and gals.
I am no longer notified when someone replies to my comment. Only notified about likes. I hate this and wonder why Substack eliminated that notification.
I don't think Tulsi, Taibbi, and Berenson are deep state.
Tulsi, Taibbi, and Berenson are DEFINITELY NOT Deep State actors. My comment was about those other commenters trashing that trio. There seems to have been a lot of trolls trashing them here. Sorry for the confusion.
So I'm really confused. If it's true, as Matt says, that life was far worse a century ago, what with all the stillborn babies and incurable diseases, why ARE today's kids anxious? Because a long life and full stomach don't always make us happy. More troubling to me when I was young, was not knowing why we have to die. I still don't know and it still bothers me. Also, why we do we humans keep killing each other?
As to Matt's optimism, where did that come from all of a sudden? Just last week his chief gripe (and mine) was that the DNC was too ebullient in the face of senseless wars, surveillance and censorship, inflation and a growing wealth gap. Now it's all good? Human progress gets a bad rap? Hey, we need more technology, not less. Orwell was wrong!
So, back to the anxious child. She asks questions? ANSWER THEM!
I was that kind of kid. There's nothing to worry about, I was told by my parents. That I knew they were lying only made me more anxious. Why? Because it doesn't take much intelligence to see that we humans can be amazingly cruel.
What's really troubling about this conversation is that most of you don't think climate change is a hoax? Whose hoax, may I ask, and what for? I think you believe it's a hoax because Democrats don't think it's a hoax and Democrats support trans people.
I'm 74 and a garden writer and I keep a close eye on the weather. Not only is climate change real (and terrifying) but the Sixth Extinction is a tragedy. It's a tragedy not just for the creatures we kill but for every single living thing (including us) that depends on a balanced ecosystem.
I hope you do some research before you reply to this with insults and vitriol. If anything's wrong with people it's how we love killing the messenger.
Just like Matt (most of the time), I'm a big believer in fact-based debate. People have a right to feel anything they choose to feel including anger, sadness and fear. We can feel hatred, too. Matt's optimism is sounding worryingly similar to Kamala's joy.
I remember last summer checking the weather for the month of May daily because my daughter was getting married -outside. Then I got curious, what was it the previous year, how about the year before … well you know where I’m going. What I discovered was, I had no clue what that day would bring . Historically, little less rainfall for that month then let’s say August. But there were really hot days, rainy days, nice days all different yet still the same. My personal belief now..I’ve been listening to doomsday folks for too long that I was becoming so fearful . I was beginning to lose the joy of the special day.
Thanks for this, Marie. I actually don't know where you're going but that's ok. Maybe you'll explain? Do you think climate change is a hoax or that we shouldn't worry about frightening things because they might spoil our happy day. Knowing why the weather is out of control is, for me, much better than not knowing why, for example, here in Minnesota where it used to be reliably frigid in winter (great if you like skating outside!), our average temperature has risen not just one or two degrees but double-digit numbers that mean we don't have snow anymore (it melts) and our lakes never freeze over. The effect this has had on our wildlife is horrific. And yet we do nothing. It's all too upsetting. Or else, we decide it's all made up (again, for whose benefit? how could this possibly be good news for industry, or anything else?). I've been writing such comments on Racket because Matt is fighting for free speech. He used to fight for equality and fairness, and for honesty in our coverage of issues like climate. I'm not one of those who thinks Matt's gone rogue. I do think his passion for free speech has caused him to condone the free speech of people with whom he does not agree, including much of what is written in his own comments section. Anyone who was as angry at the bankers who rigged the housing market in 2008 (and continue to do so), must also be angry at the damage being done to our environment and then lie about it. I wish Matt would take a position on American foreign policy too. It frankly troubles me that he is able to silo issues just when what we need most is to see the big picture and how everything is connected. Our duopoly is corrupt. Deeply corrupt. Both parties. Trump too.
Pressed "Post" too soon. The sentence about banking should read: "Anyone who was as angry as Matt was in 2008 (his article in Rolling Stone were brilliant) at the bankers who caused the financial crisis, must be just as angry at those who lie about the damage being done to our environment."
Nah. He’s moved on. Instead of vicious prose against Wall Street thieves…we have angry rants about the university campus and trans folks. Instead of skewering criminal bankers, he hangs out with the richest man in the world.
Just baffles me. I don't get it. Is it really just about the money, not wanting to offend any subscriber for whom free speech is the one and only most important single thing in America? Doesn't it matter what the speech is about? Ok, so the mainstream media's turned into a propaganda machine. Wouldn't it be better to expose its lies the way journalists like Chris Hedges, the Gray Zone (Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate) and Glen Greenwald do (and Julian Assange did, before they destroyed him) than to waste our time with a thinly veiled adoration for Trump because Trump is, I guess, having so much fun running for president? I mean, I listened to Trump in Michigan telling his rapt audience that every single migrant crossing from Venezuela has a criminal record. Murderers mostly. A few rapists. How can Matt condone this shit? I'm not voting for either of the two idiots, but I'm pretty sure Trump has Matt's vote. Walter's for sure. If it were because Trump had promised to stop the wars, fine. . . but he won't stop the wars. He's a serial liar. I know Matt's not reading this but maybe other subscribers to Racket will tell me why they think I'm full of shit. And you, too, apparently. Misery/ bewilderment) loves company!
Thanks for the review of the Vegas Sphere. I will not be spending any of my money there based on your identification of the climate change propaganda.
That over-population-humans-killing-the-planet luxury virtue signaling has been common with our elite class for some time. The difference today is that it has been weaponized politically and played nonstop through the full media to serve a globalist authoritarian takeover.
When watching, viewing or reading any entertainment, if there is any hint of that propaganda coming through, I quit watching, viewing or reading. I recognize the Borg attempt to assimilate us into the collective.
I see the woke project, the censorship industrial complex and the climate change project as all be connected to this same globalist authoritarian movement. You can read it all in the WEF agenda 2030... they are not shy about it. You can see billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Cuban pumping their capital and influence into the fray... clearly their aim is increase their wealth from it all.
Previously it was fine when these elites would grasp their superficial luxury beliefs to help fill the void in their self-worth... the rest of us working stiffs could just let them do it while we went about feeding and educating our families. But then they took it too far... their never ending seek for ego-filling causes now significantly impacts and further threatens our ability to feed and educate our families.
Now this is war... them against us. And in that war we need to stop spending our consumer dollars to fund their propaganda. Hey elites... take your Sphere and shove it up your.....
Frank, why must you crash our May discussion of clear, moonlit skies with your overcast November thoughts? Please. That was some violent segue from Joni Mitchell to the dyspeptic elites and their "over-population-humans-killing-the-planet luxury virtue signaling and superficial luxury beliefs." Please.
Amen Matt. I’m sphering tomorrow night at the Eagles concert. And I’ll enjoy every minute of it.
As I sip my overpriced Bloody Maria by a Vegas hotel pool your post reminded me: I’m here only because one male of my ancestors didn’t die of bad well water in 1850. The rest of the family died.
We will survive this attempt of the incredibly unimpressive “elite” to force on the rest of us their vision of humanity.
What a wonderful read! We are here, a miracle of time, space and the magic of the universe. So grateful to have you in my universe (with or without commas)!
I've just turned 75 and am still in excellent health, thanks to the many advances in medical knowledge and technology - thinks like MRI's and CAT scans that were science-fiction in my youth are now commonplace. Nuclear power technology is a huge boon to humanity and could easily transform the world into universal energy security if the clueless left would simply stop trying to make into the spawn of the devil.
“ the clueless left would simply stop trying to make us into the spawn of the devil”…. In their need to feel good about themselves… BINGO!! I’m borrowing this…a lot.
Yeah, I saw that. But that only works if the person advocating for it is among 'the chosen'. Imaging the outcry if Joe Blow citizens suggested re-activating that reactor - he would be shot, tarred, and feathered - not necessarily in that order ;)
The "left" has very little to do with the American distaste for nuclear power. Nuclear power plants are enormously expensive to construct and operate with long lead-times before coming on line, and the capital returns for investors are...non-existent. Any sort of credible nuclear power build-out would require enormous resources and capital from both private and public coffers. Not to mention the formation of a complex web of working relationships between government agencies and private enterprise. Think Manhattan Project + NASA Apollo Program + Tennessee Valley Authority.
Good luck with that. Oh, it can be done---just not by the current U.S., ca. 2024.
It can't be done in the U.S. *because of* the left - the ones who deliberately put up all those regulatory roadblocks to make sure nuclear would never be economically viable. Small Modular Reactors (SMR) can now be constructed at a single location and trucked to the operating site. This would allow thousands of safe compact nuclear power plants to give us complete energy autonomy in the short term (unlike fusion, which has been "only 30 years away" for the last fifty years). Nuclear power is a completely solved problem that has been demonized to the point of extinction, in spite of the fact that it is clearly the way forward into energy freedom. It's just that the leftist elites don't want energy freedom - they only want energy for themselves, not the masses.
Long-term high-level waste storage is NOT an issue; it was made up by the same people who are fear-mongering nuclear power in general. The 'waste' that is being stored is actually FUEL for next-gen nuclear power systems. Modern molten-salt designs are much safer than older ones, more modular, and can use that 'waste' you mentioned as feed stock.
As for safety, nuclear power generation is historically MUCH safer than anything else. Think about how many fatalities (other than Chernoble - which no one in their right mind would use now) have been directly caused by nuclear power plant failures and compare that number the fatalities associated with traditional electric generation designs. There have been ZERO deaths due to nuclear power plant deaths in the U.S. On the other hand, coal-fired power plants have killed at least 460,000 people in the U.S. over the past 20 years. Any sane person would conclude we should rapidly replace all coal power plants with nuclear ones, but since that runs counter to the 'NUKES ARE EVIL' religion, we continue to let coal-fired plants run, killing more people every year
Sorry, friend, but that's just wrong. I've researched this whole nuclear-waste storage issue (wrote a prize-winning paper on it in college), so I know somewhat of what I speak.
If--IF--this somewhat pie-in-the-sky scheme of recyclable nuclear fuel that you speak of ever comes to pass, THEN we could consider PART of the problem to have been solved. For now, this scheme is just vaporware, plans on the drawing board for the "next-gen" nuke plants, the type being pushed by the likes of Bill Gates.
It's an elusive goal that's been tried before: remember "breeder reactors" back in the 1980s? The Clinch River Reactor project? Ended in failure, like so many other parts of the nuclear scheme.
"Zero deaths due to nuclear power" is a lie promulgated by the industry. Notice I used a different phrase than you did; it's true that there have been zero deaths directly tied to *nuclear power plants*. (Not counting, of course, whatever *civilian* deaths there were at Three Mile Island that haven't been proven, as such cancers are almost impossible to do.) There have been other catastrophic incidents, f'rinstance the uranium tailings pond breach on the Rio Puerco at Church Rock, NM, which released tons and tons of low-level radioactivity into the Colorado River. How many people in Los Angeles were affected by this? We'll probably never know.
There are currently something like 25,000 electric power plants in the US, and only about 215 are coal powered - the others are all gas-powered. If nuclear power hadn't been so demonized over the last few decades, we could have already replaced ALL of the coal-powered plants with nuclear, using the same property already dedicated to the existing power plant; no ecological impact, no birds (including bald eagles, which used to be a felony) being maimed or killed, no air pollution, no noise pollution. If it sounds too good to be true, it isn't - we just haven't been able to implement a sane solution due to demonization of the technology. These guys would rather see huge swaths of wind turbines killing bald eagles by the thousands or huge swaths of solar panels also killing off the local flora and fauna rather than a simple - and safe - nuclear plant using a small fraction of one percent of the footprint. When historians look back on this period, this stupid inversion of safety versus efficiency will not be viewed kindly.
With respect to 'the carpet of death' you seem to think is associated with nuclear energy, do you have ANY evidence of this actually happening on any kind of scale? Even Chernoble, the worst possible disaster associated with a nuclear power plant, has had negligible impact on global health. Compared to the tens of thousands of deaths every year on U.S. highways (40,990 highway fatalities in 2023 alone), Chernoble doesn't even show up - it's down in the 4th decimal place somewhere. We could have a Chernoble every week in the U.S. and it wouldn't come close to matching our yearly highway slaughter. What can't you guys understand? Everybody thinks 40,990 deaths a year is no problem, but ONE POSSIBLE - MAYBE - SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE death that MIGHT BE associated with a nuclear power plant is a global disaster. And nobody seems to want to talk about the 'carpet of death' associated with wind turbines - whale species extinctions, bald eagle deaths by the thousands, and untold numbers of other bird and other species threatened by solar panel farms. Where are all the lawsuits attempting to stop solar/wind due to stress on some small lizard? Don't (or more accurately - didn't) lizards exist under solar panels and near wind turbine farms? Where are all the studies proving wind turbines kill bald eagles by the thousands? Are bald eagle deaths OK as long as we get our 'renewable' electric power for that portion of the day when they actually deliver energy?
So tell me - other than this insane BUT NUKES ARE BAD!!! ideological position, what exactly are you afraid of, and how can you possibly justify all the ecological damage done by the whole 'renewable energy' scam which is anything but renewable?
Standing, clapping my hands numb and cheering!
Look at me - 66 years old, lost the love of my life after decades of marriage to a shocking and sudden death, then COVID (steadfastly unjabbed), during which the just-18-year-old dog died. My late husband and I had her since she was 8 weeks old.
Major, maximally-invasive lung surgery coming next month, and I have to monitor 2 brain tumors.
Took the opportunity to make up a long coolness with my sister, took a vacation to visit her and her new husband, and my BFF of over 50 years (and her family).
I'm still optimistic about humanity, my life - and tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on.
Here's to human beings - there's nothing more horrifying or heartbreaking than watching each member of our species digest those bites of the apple.
Blessings of peace, health, and comfort on you, Ellen.
Forgot to add, self-published 2 novels (my first - I'd only had a few poems published, many years ago) after age 60 - love letters to small-town Maine (where I live) from a native Manhattanite (you'd have to pay me a LOT to set foot there nowadays!).
Thanks for all the positive responses - and the prayers. I have a loooooong list, but I add "bless everyone who has prayed for me" before I move on to "bless this country," the Revolutionary battlefields of which the blood in my own veins watered. Also had an ancestor on the Maine committee to advise on potential amendments to the proposed Constitution.
https://covid19criticalcare.com/reviews-and-monographs/cancer-care/
Praying for you, whoever you are, my fellow image of God
Ellen, if I think of Matt’s words as the ice cream sundae here, your comment was the glistening maraschino cherry on top. Thanks for sharing…
Aw, thanks!
Soldier on, dear Ellen! And enjoy every step!
Thank you for this!
You know, after reading your comment again, perhaps this is a better link to offer. I first read this around age 30 and think it should be required reading for everyone. Either way, you’re in my thoughts and prayers.
https://a.co/d/3xhO8cX
I don’t know who you are, but I hope you know your presence on earth has blessed others. Here’s to the hope of miracles, granting you health to continue your human journey here on earth, for many more years.
That's what I'm hoping for, but if it's not to be, I've had a wild, fun ride, and I hope I've shared some of God's love while here. I know I've touched lives, and have had mine touched by many. I'm very blessed, either way.
I've loved greatly, achieved quietly but satisfactorily, and had tons of reward, though mostly of the non-material sort - but those are the best ones.
I personally think this is all a grand rehearsal for Eternity...whatever that may be.....
Those are the only True ones....
You, my friend, are a Warrior and a Hero. God Bless!
Blessings on wherever your journey takes you. Having lived through my own fairly unbelievable last few years I applaud and share your perspective.
Stay strong and remember the wonders of you life.....
Ellen, I so appreciate your humanity and love of life, exquisitely expressed. May you continue to discover more little joys in your life.
God bless you. Thank you for your optimism and your will to just continue. I’ve been through an immense amount of grief in my life - even in just the last year, but I feel resolute in my drive to LIVE. Capital L live. We need each others wisdom and optimism.
True words! I want t see what comes next. I want more time with my family and friends, more time to read, more time to cook and enjoy the food, more time to look at the beautiful river at the bottom of the hill I live on, more autumns to see the leaves change.
The support of others' goodwill and love - and yes, wisdom and optimism, is a great source of inestimable benefit.
❤️❤️❤️
YES ! YES ! YES !
Bravo and God Bless, to both Matt and to you Ellen.
Marry me.
LOL - but only sort-of. When I've recovered from surgery, we can talk . . . Llew was the love of my life - so far. I'm open, if love comes again.
Please tell me you're not vegan - I think bacon is a major food group, and that lobster is God's perfect butter-delivery vehicle.
I won't live to 100, but I'll enjoy the heck out of the years I get!
Ellen, your comment was very moving and relatable. I became a widow at 53 when my dear husband died suddenly. It was a real struggle to go on with life, and then I lost my father and mother in the following two years. Strangely, the loss of the little dog that I had adopted with my deceased husband seemed to put an end to the worst of my grief. I did move on and found a new soul mate six years ago, as well as a beautiful granddaughter who was born nine months to the day after the death of my husband. It does not sound like you need any suggestions to improve your attitude. In all sincerity, God bless you!
I'm not a vegan. My favorite title for a cookbook was "Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man." PS. "Sort-of" sounds better than marriage ;)
Agreed. Not looking to get hitched again.
But I eat what I want and I hope I'll die like a woman! Pulled pork all last week (cooked that stuff over 12 hours very slowly after searing), with coleslaw and pickles, as well as homemade smoked peach bourbon maple barbecue sauce.
Wishing you very good luck with your surgery Ellen...
Yes, like Sisyphus, I am struggling back up the mountain of optimism endeavoring to reach the summit before I transition into the awaiting realm......Lucky you for staying on top of it and not descending to the mountain's base.....it is an arduous return. Perhaps I should dump the Rock I am trying to scale up the surface with me? Hey !....that's a thought....get rid of the baggage.
Dealing with my husband's death was very hard, I won't say otherwise. But I wanted to get to a better place. Same with my parents' deaths, many years before.
There are sad times, ane if I'm spared, I will undoubtedly know more of them - but I have got past any pessimism long ago.
There's a saying I heard from my boss - "the obstacle is the way." Accept, climb, enjoy the view, and the journey. Even when it's hard, even when it's painful, even then, there are things one can find pleasure and hope in - especially if you have people you love who love you.
True, true...I have weathered it all very well until my eldest son died recently, which has been overwhelming....but 'this too shall pass'...a loss unlike any other....looking forward to the view from the summit. Keep the courage.
I am so very sorry for your loss, Susan. I rather think losing a child must be the worst of losses of loved ones - the older generation, in the natural course of events, predeceases the younger, one's contemporaries may go sooner than one does one's self, but surely the death of the young, while their progenitor(s) live, must outrage the senses.
Again, I am so very sorry, and I applaud your courage, too. Please keep striving to live with the loss - we never "get over" them, they just become part of our lives, every day. Sometimes we remember happily, even.
And just maybe, in embracing joys, we honor the joys our gone-before loved ones gave us.
It seems it is......thank you Ellen, and I will be imagining you in full, restored health after your surgery and recuperation. Bon Chance !
Merci bien, et a vous aussi.
it’s the new religion of the west: The Hatred of Humanity.
perhaps the only difference between the species is that we are the only one that actively hates ourselves.
Mother Earth has survived much, much worse and she is still thriving...
Mother Earth though isn't just a passive survivor. It has defended itself from dangerous species in the past. To paraphrase George Carlin, the Earth will be fine; it's humans that are fucked.
yeah, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs apparently wiped out 95% of all species at the time. you would never know by looking around tho…
That’s not for sure, K-t extinction was from an asteroid. Anyway, the End-Permian extinction was worse. Good-bye, trilobites.
Maybe this time the major survivor will be cockroaches
The hating ourselves and hating humanity is not real. It's all just virtue signaling by self-appointed moral police of today so they can feel they're holier than everyone else. Pay them no mind. They don't deserve the time of our day.
I wouldn't be so one-size-fits-all about it, mate. Many of us were misanthropes before it was cool.
Not sure of the family tree but Hating Humanity and Liberal White Guilt share some DNA.
Folks around here prefer white grievance.
I don’t think they are explicit about their hatred…only that it is implied by their actions and rhetoric. a person whom hates themselves will project unto others that same hatred. this can manifest in the hatred of strength or the hatred of weakness.
how else can you explain those who believe the human race is a virus upon the earth? that we are a stain upon creation, a parasite who takes and never gives.
this is the voice of Satan, the accuser of sin and the enemy of mankind.
Gentlemen/Ladies: It's a time commitment but this N.S. Lyons report on YouTube (in my opinion) demystifies and explains the forces assaulting our Republic exactly. (Hope I got the link right.) THE CHINA CONVERGENCE
https://youtu.be/FZTe2ZWpMCg?.si=DXGTkmcv_vkhMpZ8
This was supposed to be the happy hour. As the Chinese what they're drinking!
Hatred of Humanity, for profit…
Good point. Does the evolution of human intelligence naturally lead to hatred of our species? Seems that way. We’ve been behind the curve as many countries have expressed hatred for the West long before it became cool here. If Mother Earth had her say she would have visited every biblical disaster on Washington DC, the epicenter of earth’s evildoers.
Our planet will remain well after we plunder it and vaporize every living thing on it. Then the process starts over again.
no. the hatred is not a result of evolution of mankind. its art of war by the elites. if they can get us to fight each other, they can do what they want while we're distracted.
Doomsday cult, reaching a peak during economic turmoil. You were getting by in 2019,and today your in a food bank line up. But why are the upper class elites buying into scarcity fears? Maybe it's aging and knowing billions doesn't stop decay and death.
"Here I saw a little girl a few rows below whispering to Mom, “We’re gonna die?”
Isn't this about what our educators have been doing to our children since the hoax of climate change was introduced to a gullible world? Now we have millions of people and many of them children all worried there is no future unless we destroy ourselves first with the sort of policies pushed by the Democrat party i.e. the ignominious "Green New Deal" wrapped in the nonsense of inflation reduction act which is drowning us in debt and making the same few very rich. And secondly from the division it has caused (climate change denial) that is used by the propaganda machines in academia and MSM to beat all the dissenters into conformity leading us to the sort dystopian images referred to be Taibbi.
Last night on the evening news I watched video of homes being “washed away by the sea due to climate change” (but due mostly to the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers would no longer spend the millions for beach replenishment to save homes that probably shouldn’t have been built there in the first place). The media propaganda envelops us. It’s no wonder that the UN has recently decided to concentrate their “educational” efforts on children. To the little girl: “of course you’re going to die, unless you do what you’re told”.
Alas, it's not just children. There are many millions of people who will cast a vote for a woman they don't know, aren't sure they remember liking, and who has more platitudes than a used car salesman. Because they have been told to.
That’s too bad. I thought a Zevon fan would be a bit better at skewering half the country.
1. Who said I'm a Zevon fan?
2. Your comment is vague and ill-effective.
3. Are you one of those commenters who scroll not to learn or add to the discussion, but to try weak criticisms?
4. Your grammar is poor. What is too bad? Also, I think your 8th grade English teacher would prefer: "I would have thought a Zevon fan..."
Correct on all points! Good work!
these are the trained rat people.
Well said.
I mean, you could have just said “of course you’re going to die!”
That is the truth. My son is 4 and knows this. He has witnesses sheep be slaughtered and chickens too. He has witnessed hundreds of years old trees fall. He sees the beauty with the loss and that is by design. That IS life. Everything we love we will lose. We have forgotten how to hold the grief as a society.
So yes, little one, you will one day die. But aren’t the flowers beautiful?
Depart the psyop and live.
Where's the exit?
"I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens...I've been knocking from the inside." Rumi
That could work. After all, you and Rumi could be in a closet.
We are building and living in areas where it has Always Been Stupid. But hey! I got the money, and a view!
,,,California, you should see where they build lots of houses. Idiots.
This kind of pusilanimous manipulation of the young, the destruction of their natural dreams, in many ways the stealing of their childhood, is one of the things that makes me truly and deeply angry. It's right up there with a certain kind of bullying.
I've come to really despise a certain cultural element in education. It's also telling what many of those people are themselves like (Yes, they really all seem to have weird unaesthetic hair colors and noserings).
How true! They're using Greta Thunberg to scare the crap out of kids. Add to this, the hypersexualizing of children with drag shows in kindergarten and then discombobulating them with "gender dysphoria". I'm 60, and being an adolescent in the analog era was already difficult as hell. Any kid that can stay sane today must be the Buddha.
Jose: I think you'd like (worth the time) this:
https://youtu.be/FZTe2ZWpMCg?si=DXGTkmcv_vkhMpZ8
Being both 60 AND adolescent in the digital era can't be a fun ride either.
Mental illness plays a huge role in the fears that are generated by climate change fear porn.
Demeisen complains to his date on prom night, in the front seat of his father's Plymouth Fury ca. 1958.
Son had to do a geo essay on tidal power. Every paper we found said its not practical with today's tech. I knew what the teacher wanted, forced him to put a blurb about future progress. She wanted an example - should have made up an example
The "Green New Steal" says it all.
Beautifully succinct and accurate.
You just described Climate ChangeTM in a sentence:
"there is no future unless we destroy ourselves first"
This may be the ultimate tautology. Bravo Cosmo T Kat.
We need more people who are unafraid to speak the truth and every year the truth becomes harder to find because truth no longer sets you free it is likely to land you in jail.
Dunno, how many times can you pee in a pool before it becomes a problem?
All depends on what you deem as a “problem “
Hating the haters! Don't worry, the Saturnian ant men will soon be here!
Depends on how you define "pee". Also the next:
Why do you pee in a pool?
To make a point in a list of comments.
For the pool or the person doing the peeing?
Hmmm, still dumb as a rock!
What’s the matter with you? Don’t you trust “The Science?”
No I do not, but damn do I admire people who can craft good one liners, (lookin' at you Cosmo T Kat!).
Compliance through fear is in the first chapter of the road to dystopia instructional manual.
Amen
I wonder if one of those little girls at one time was Greta, the environmentalist wackos’ human shield.
We seemed to have reached the nadir when that repellent little troll screeched her guts out at a grovelling, hand-wringing UN audience. She would have made a nice wife for J.R.R. Tolkien's Gollum....
Now that is LOL funny!
Some people cannot see the world in front of them. Where did gigatons of CO2 go? Is it a reactive gas or chemically inert? Basic science education leads one to know that CO2 is a problem because of its physical-chemical properties. The central question is how much of a problem is it?
The hyperbolic nonsense of "destroying ourselves first" is nonsense. It is also utter nonsense to espouse a doctrine of science denial. Seriously, do you think the bean-counters in the fossil fuel care about tomorrow? I recall only too well the disinformation campaign surrounding smoking. The mortality from lung cancer has decreased from 70 per 100,000 in 1990 to 35 per 100,000 in 2018. Chemicals that bound to DNA (anthracenes) do cause cancer.
Climate science is a science. Bloviating about the "hoax of climate change" just lines the pockets of the dying fossil fuel industry. Fortunately, the market is already deciding and the future is not in fossil fuels, the money is moving.
"Some people cannot see the world in front of them."
From your comments I take it you are referring to yourself. What kind of science is it? Based on the wildly skewed computer models and theories, it appears like a science that's been abused by hucksters like you, Rick. Does it really line the pockets of the fossil fuel industry? I hardly think so. The future is not in wind mills and electric power which requires vast amounts of fossil fuel to achieve any semblance of efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness. It enriches the hucksters who profit on the backs of tax payers while under delivering on phony promises.
What is the future, then, Cosmo?
Until a real, efficient solution is found, it’s fossil fuels that drive the modern just like they are needed to produce alternatives, you know the “sustainable” shit the enviros claim. The problem is not peak oil, but rather extraction costs. There is still plenty, just more expensive. Now is the time rethink the path forward and wind mills and solar panels are not that sustainable path. Wouldn’t you agree, feldspar?
It’s not one that eliminates fossil fuels. Funny, so like is to swing from one extreme to the other thereby suggesting the correct answer is total elimination. I still believe we are a nation of people that can and will be resourceful. I’m seeing nuclear having a comeback.
Wildly skewed computer models and theories?
Where are you that you haven't been massively affected by climate change?
Where I grew up, when I was a child, I remember feet of snowfall every year. Snow that would stay on the ground for weeks due to low temperatures.
Now it's normal for there to only be a handful of days of snowfall, maximum a few inches, and it all melts within a day or two.
My family used to be able to drive to a literally a dozen different small ski resorts. Now they have all closed because there is simply no snow.
At the same time, most of the families I grew up with did not have air conditioning in their houses. But now the number of days in the summer where the temperature is over 100 degrees has been steadily climbing and air conditioning is almost a necessity. More and more people die every year due to excessive heat.
So yeah, I'm wondering where you live where you can't observe climate change happening with your own eyes and brain.
You just described real climate change that has been occurring for millions of years. Cycles, dude. It’s happened before and will continue to happen.
So you took issue with the quote "some people can't see the world in front of them" but we seem to agree that the world in front of us is: climate change.
So what's your point, again?
I can’t be responsible for memory issues, Mr. Biden
"More and more people die every year due to excessive heat."
---------------------------------
Cold is everywhere more dangerous than heat.
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/the-texas-heat-deaths-scam?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=513601&post_id=148375360&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=b6p6j&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
So my point was that the world is obviously getting hotter in very visible ways, and you point me to an article that essentially says that's a GOOD thing?
I mean, yeah, if you're talking about somewhere that might benefit in certain ways from being hotter, sure.
There are now places e.g. in India where the wet bulb temperature is getting close to 100 degrees F, meaning that in the near future, it's conceivable that they will be too hot to sustain human life. Maybe ask them what they think about global warming.
So in hot places it's bad and in cold places it's good. On balance, it saves lives. It's dishonest to only tell half the story.
Your operative word being "bean counters". They have always been the life blood of totalitarian regimes. Human moral reason, as enshrined in our Republic's Constitution, is the athetesis of the corporate sterility now attempting to reduce the peoples of the free world to automatons. "Green" or "dirty oil" isn't the problem. It is the capture and prevention of the healthy American national conversation capable of creating workable solutions to the problems so both can be exploited for gain and profit. Hence the internet crackdown, the assault on free speech and the sudden appearance of "terrorist" thought crime. Meanwhile, day by day, the greatest upward transfer of wealth in human history continues unabated. No solutions forthcoming.
Simply: An immoral clique of billionaire totalitarians with the help of the vacuous "bean counters" they employ have decided to seize control of the worlds resources and enslave its peoples. Proof? Who is in control of the American Constitutional Republic? The crippled and manipulated Joe Biden? The cackling horror K.Harris? Things are not all right. The perps can rationalize any atrocity. Depart the psyop and live.
Respectfully, MR, you need to read more widely for sure. "bean counters" imply "totalitarian regimes"? Bean counters are the life-blood of every organization on the planet. Without them your local Big Brothers or Chik Fil A's or school boards would go broke, brother. "corporate sterility", or Free Market as our founding father's preferred, have delivered in 500 years, across the globe, a humanity that is thriving in ways humans couldn't even fathom for their previous 250 Thousand years of existence on the planet. Likely, within 15 years it will virtually eliminate Extreme Poverty as defined by the World Bank! (https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief) Since 1970 nearly 10% of the American Middle class has disappeared...because they moved into the upper middle class (https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/). Proof. Feel free to site your sources. Peace before polarization.
Thanks for the links.
"Bean-counters" who at the behest of rigged game hustlers place profit and the bottom line above human freedom, dignity, and culture are as old as time. Hitler's bureaucracy was known for its meticulous record keeping. The Communists are known for billing families the price of the bullet used to execute their loved ones. After the conflagration: "Gee--I was just following orders."
No one has a problem with free markets and capitalism. The question is: Why the sudden call for Americans to accept the suppression of free speech, incarceration for wrong think and the suspension of civil liberties? It's the same A-Bomb rattling pathological narcissism that nearly burned the world to the ground in the 20th Century?
Interested: https://youtu.be/FZTe2ZWpMCg?si=DXGTkmcv_vkhMpZ8
To your point, Cato.org has begun to publish, in analog and digitally, a new quarter: Free Society. This quarter's cover story is on point: "Cult of the Presidency; America's Pathological Relationship with Executive Power". It argues well that throughout the past, in particular the past 30 years, we the people have chosen to vote for an Executive who can do everything imaginable for us, and so we attract narcissists who promise they can. Of course, they cannot. It is the first time in my 64 years I've had doubts that the Madisonian system can survive. Peace.
Thanks for the courteous reply. And peace to you as well. (If that's possible.) Don't lose hope!!
Matt's co-"defendant at the congressional hearing with the Wasserman-Shultz/Plaskett Experience did this incredible video "Escaping the Woke Matrix". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7iWsDYnJ8&t=55s. It thoroughly debunks Climate ChangeTM.
If you watch that, you may realize that it is YOU who cannot see the world in front of them.
And the market is deciding daily that fossil fuels are going to be around for a long time. You'll see this when you can see the world in front of you.
Congressional hearings do not have defendants. .
I highly recommend watching this, just did. Thank you for sharing
That's so sad Rick.
For all the politcally correct doomsaying, crickets about the real and present danger to both us and Mother Earth as our enemies around the globe threaten to meet our arrogance with their nuclear arsenal.
All those living today will die.
OMG, how profound! LoL
The last paragraph says it all. Thank you! And have a wonderful day...
We are a miracle, you know...
We are stardust, ultimately; we are the Universe itself become conscious. Like the expanding galaxies rushing from us, we too trace our beginning in the instant of the big bang.
Miracles... in such simple things. Sitting in my backyard with a small bonfire in the pit, sipping on a beer as the evening falls, cradling my puppy asleep on my lap while my love and I discuss whatever we want...
And the moon looks down in envy.
we are golden.
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Oh man... you're RIGHT! Sigh... I thought I was being sooo original.
Damnit...
I completely forgot that CSN song.
But, in my defense, I was just a child when it came out? LOL
Actually, it's a Joni Mitchell song that CSN covered, LOL. I think I'm a little older than you. I loved your comment, though, either way!
It starts "I came upon a child of God." We are moving further and further from that way of viewing the world.
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." - Matthew 5:9
It's STILL the best comment I've read because it's so true. It's all inside of you. Just look. Or as Rumi said, "The wound is how the light enters you".
Loved the picture you painted in your comment. I wasn't born yet when the song came out, but I read those three words and immediately thought of it. I was going to finish the next lines, but Patrick and company beat me to it! :)
Small-town Maine is pretty close! And that's from a Manhattan-born-and-raised girl.
After the age of 60, I published my (hopefully) first two novels - love letters to small-town Maine life and people.
Where in Manhattan? I grew up in 'da Bronx'. Yeah; I'm a freaking cliche- Bronx Irish Catholic from the Parkchester area.
I attended HS in the UWS (87th & West End- it's now luxe condos). I left NYC in the '80's and moved to Canada. I now live and thrive in Kingston, Ontario.
Cool. I used to ride the subway to Yankee Stadium for games, back in my youth.
I grew up on East 18th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues. In the apartment part of which was used for Barbra Streisand's character's flat in The Way We Were, after we moved 2 1/2 blocks west, to the corner of 18th and Irving Place. Right across from Pete's Tavern. Leonard Bernstein's son, eventually, lived upstairs, and I ran into the Great Man Himself quite a few times on those stairs. Also saw him conducting a rehearsal at Lincoln Center on a school trip.
Have you seen Maestro? I really think Bradley Cooper got both the sides I saw in person - the grand, ambitious, passionate maestro, and the very private, not terribly happy person I met on the stairs.
Also met Bill Murray, dining al fresco at the restaurant downstairs from us.
"not terribly happy person I met on the stairs"
One thing Lenny always regretted was not developing into enough of a composer to be recognized for that, and not "just" a great conductor. Maybe this was part of what you saw.
This.
Best comment I've ever read on Substack.
Whoa!
Thank you!
That moon you mention is gradually distancing itself from earth. I sometimes wonder if humanity will be found guilty of this as well.
Can I please double-like this comment? 🙌🏼
Short and sweet. Hope Rescue the Republic is a smashing success. People are amazing. The mopers who are smearing you in the comments section of the Substack Election Dialogues, not so much: https://read.substack.com/p/a-better-digital-polis/comments
Holy crap Yuri! That was like going to Oz. It's a make believe land where Tulsi is a Russian AgentTM and Taibbi is a right winger. I felt like I'd entered an insane asylum and I live in the SF Bay Area!!
Came to say the same. Just read some of the comments. Unreal.
A whole room of ostensible adults with their fingers in their ears screaming "I can't hear you, I can't hear you . . ."
How did we get here???
Mr. Bezmenov, as I read this piece I actually thought of your framing of the psychological attack on The West (demoralization, etc). Very cogent! More people should listen to your witness.
We’re all “right-wingers” now, even if we aren’t.
Dude, I'm so far "left" I'm barely sane. Meaning I believe in "Power to the People" and absolutely no war unless our back is against the wall. Get money out of politics. Absolute free speech. Healthcare for all.
Today, this puts me right into Hillary's 47% "Basket of Deplorables", with all of you guys and gals.
Welcome to the Basket. Is this the famous one on the Hell route?
Good grief, Yuri. I thought this Elections Dialogues a positive thing. I am speechless
It is a troll farm for Deep State actors.
I am no longer notified when someone replies to my comment. Only notified about likes. I hate this and wonder why Substack eliminated that notification.
I don't think Tulsi, Taibbi, and Berenson are deep state.
Tulsi, Taibbi, and Berenson are DEFINITELY NOT Deep State actors. My comment was about those other commenters trashing that trio. There seems to have been a lot of trolls trashing them here. Sorry for the confusion.
The adage remains true: you can be loud, or you can be right.
If your speech is anything like this, you'll knock it out of the park!
Thanks Matt!
Best of luck Sunday! Wish we could all make it to support you guys!
"Species guilt is a strange thing to ask of a visitor to a $2 billion digital tennis ball in a desert resort town built by gangsters."
Well crafted, and true on multiple levels!!!!!!
Makes money, though…
"Here I saw a little girl a few rows below whispering to Mom, “We’re gonna die?”
and we wonder why this generation is so anxious.
So I'm really confused. If it's true, as Matt says, that life was far worse a century ago, what with all the stillborn babies and incurable diseases, why ARE today's kids anxious? Because a long life and full stomach don't always make us happy. More troubling to me when I was young, was not knowing why we have to die. I still don't know and it still bothers me. Also, why we do we humans keep killing each other?
As to Matt's optimism, where did that come from all of a sudden? Just last week his chief gripe (and mine) was that the DNC was too ebullient in the face of senseless wars, surveillance and censorship, inflation and a growing wealth gap. Now it's all good? Human progress gets a bad rap? Hey, we need more technology, not less. Orwell was wrong!
So, back to the anxious child. She asks questions? ANSWER THEM!
I was that kind of kid. There's nothing to worry about, I was told by my parents. That I knew they were lying only made me more anxious. Why? Because it doesn't take much intelligence to see that we humans can be amazingly cruel.
What's really troubling about this conversation is that most of you don't think climate change is a hoax? Whose hoax, may I ask, and what for? I think you believe it's a hoax because Democrats don't think it's a hoax and Democrats support trans people.
I'm 74 and a garden writer and I keep a close eye on the weather. Not only is climate change real (and terrifying) but the Sixth Extinction is a tragedy. It's a tragedy not just for the creatures we kill but for every single living thing (including us) that depends on a balanced ecosystem.
I hope you do some research before you reply to this with insults and vitriol. If anything's wrong with people it's how we love killing the messenger.
Just like Matt (most of the time), I'm a big believer in fact-based debate. People have a right to feel anything they choose to feel including anger, sadness and fear. We can feel hatred, too. Matt's optimism is sounding worryingly similar to Kamala's joy.
Holy shit, it’s you again…
Matt’s got a lot of shitty friends these days. He’s doing a little Steven Pinker Dr Pangloss thing.
It’s depressing how stupid he is now.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I remember last summer checking the weather for the month of May daily because my daughter was getting married -outside. Then I got curious, what was it the previous year, how about the year before … well you know where I’m going. What I discovered was, I had no clue what that day would bring . Historically, little less rainfall for that month then let’s say August. But there were really hot days, rainy days, nice days all different yet still the same. My personal belief now..I’ve been listening to doomsday folks for too long that I was becoming so fearful . I was beginning to lose the joy of the special day.
Jesus H Christ. Who the fuck gave you an almanac?
Thanks for this, Marie. I actually don't know where you're going but that's ok. Maybe you'll explain? Do you think climate change is a hoax or that we shouldn't worry about frightening things because they might spoil our happy day. Knowing why the weather is out of control is, for me, much better than not knowing why, for example, here in Minnesota where it used to be reliably frigid in winter (great if you like skating outside!), our average temperature has risen not just one or two degrees but double-digit numbers that mean we don't have snow anymore (it melts) and our lakes never freeze over. The effect this has had on our wildlife is horrific. And yet we do nothing. It's all too upsetting. Or else, we decide it's all made up (again, for whose benefit? how could this possibly be good news for industry, or anything else?). I've been writing such comments on Racket because Matt is fighting for free speech. He used to fight for equality and fairness, and for honesty in our coverage of issues like climate. I'm not one of those who thinks Matt's gone rogue. I do think his passion for free speech has caused him to condone the free speech of people with whom he does not agree, including much of what is written in his own comments section. Anyone who was as angry at the bankers who rigged the housing market in 2008 (and continue to do so), must also be angry at the damage being done to our environment and then lie about it. I wish Matt would take a position on American foreign policy too. It frankly troubles me that he is able to silo issues just when what we need most is to see the big picture and how everything is connected. Our duopoly is corrupt. Deeply corrupt. Both parties. Trump too.
Pressed "Post" too soon. The sentence about banking should read: "Anyone who was as angry as Matt was in 2008 (his article in Rolling Stone were brilliant) at the bankers who caused the financial crisis, must be just as angry at those who lie about the damage being done to our environment."
Nah. He’s moved on. Instead of vicious prose against Wall Street thieves…we have angry rants about the university campus and trans folks. Instead of skewering criminal bankers, he hangs out with the richest man in the world.
Matt only cares about dumb shit now.
Just baffles me. I don't get it. Is it really just about the money, not wanting to offend any subscriber for whom free speech is the one and only most important single thing in America? Doesn't it matter what the speech is about? Ok, so the mainstream media's turned into a propaganda machine. Wouldn't it be better to expose its lies the way journalists like Chris Hedges, the Gray Zone (Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate) and Glen Greenwald do (and Julian Assange did, before they destroyed him) than to waste our time with a thinly veiled adoration for Trump because Trump is, I guess, having so much fun running for president? I mean, I listened to Trump in Michigan telling his rapt audience that every single migrant crossing from Venezuela has a criminal record. Murderers mostly. A few rapists. How can Matt condone this shit? I'm not voting for either of the two idiots, but I'm pretty sure Trump has Matt's vote. Walter's for sure. If it were because Trump had promised to stop the wars, fine. . . but he won't stop the wars. He's a serial liar. I know Matt's not reading this but maybe other subscribers to Racket will tell me why they think I'm full of shit. And you, too, apparently. Misery/ bewilderment) loves company!
Thanks for the review of the Vegas Sphere. I will not be spending any of my money there based on your identification of the climate change propaganda.
That over-population-humans-killing-the-planet luxury virtue signaling has been common with our elite class for some time. The difference today is that it has been weaponized politically and played nonstop through the full media to serve a globalist authoritarian takeover.
When watching, viewing or reading any entertainment, if there is any hint of that propaganda coming through, I quit watching, viewing or reading. I recognize the Borg attempt to assimilate us into the collective.
I see the woke project, the censorship industrial complex and the climate change project as all be connected to this same globalist authoritarian movement. You can read it all in the WEF agenda 2030... they are not shy about it. You can see billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Cuban pumping their capital and influence into the fray... clearly their aim is increase their wealth from it all.
Previously it was fine when these elites would grasp their superficial luxury beliefs to help fill the void in their self-worth... the rest of us working stiffs could just let them do it while we went about feeding and educating our families. But then they took it too far... their never ending seek for ego-filling causes now significantly impacts and further threatens our ability to feed and educate our families.
Now this is war... them against us. And in that war we need to stop spending our consumer dollars to fund their propaganda. Hey elites... take your Sphere and shove it up your.....
Well - thanks! But the Sphere is a marvel. Just has a few bits that caused an eye roll or two. Wouldn’t want you to skip it…
Do they serve alcohol at the venue? That might work.
Frank, why must you crash our May discussion of clear, moonlit skies with your overcast November thoughts? Please. That was some violent segue from Joni Mitchell to the dyspeptic elites and their "over-population-humans-killing-the-planet luxury virtue signaling and superficial luxury beliefs." Please.
It's the content, not the object. Go see a concert in the Sphere.
I love this. You are a treasure.
I never think of Ozymandias as a paean to Nature, but to Art, and as a rebuff of temporal power. The sculpture was broken but was reborn as a Sonnet.
Amen Matt. I’m sphering tomorrow night at the Eagles concert. And I’ll enjoy every minute of it.
As I sip my overpriced Bloody Maria by a Vegas hotel pool your post reminded me: I’m here only because one male of my ancestors didn’t die of bad well water in 1850. The rest of the family died.
We will survive this attempt of the incredibly unimpressive “elite” to force on the rest of us their vision of humanity.
What a wonderful read! We are here, a miracle of time, space and the magic of the universe. So grateful to have you in my universe (with or without commas)!
I've just turned 75 and am still in excellent health, thanks to the many advances in medical knowledge and technology - thinks like MRI's and CAT scans that were science-fiction in my youth are now commonplace. Nuclear power technology is a huge boon to humanity and could easily transform the world into universal energy security if the clueless left would simply stop trying to make into the spawn of the devil.
“ the clueless left would simply stop trying to make us into the spawn of the devil”…. In their need to feel good about themselves… BINGO!! I’m borrowing this…a lot.
They are coming around.
3 mile Island of all places is being fired up.
Yeah, I saw that. But that only works if the person advocating for it is among 'the chosen'. Imaging the outcry if Joe Blow citizens suggested re-activating that reactor - he would be shot, tarred, and feathered - not necessarily in that order ;)
Liberals consider hypocrisy a righteous virtue.
Hypocrisy is a component of the psyche of every human being.
Just like evil.
It's how one controls or uses it that determines integrity.
When I read that news, I thought exactly the same thing. Seems like we’ve been conditioned to give up energy, in favor of the ‘chosen’.
For Bill Gates and his Microsoft AI servers.
Nuclear energy could possibly save the precious EVs
The "left" has very little to do with the American distaste for nuclear power. Nuclear power plants are enormously expensive to construct and operate with long lead-times before coming on line, and the capital returns for investors are...non-existent. Any sort of credible nuclear power build-out would require enormous resources and capital from both private and public coffers. Not to mention the formation of a complex web of working relationships between government agencies and private enterprise. Think Manhattan Project + NASA Apollo Program + Tennessee Valley Authority.
Good luck with that. Oh, it can be done---just not by the current U.S., ca. 2024.
It can't be done in the U.S. *because of* the left - the ones who deliberately put up all those regulatory roadblocks to make sure nuclear would never be economically viable. Small Modular Reactors (SMR) can now be constructed at a single location and trucked to the operating site. This would allow thousands of safe compact nuclear power plants to give us complete energy autonomy in the short term (unlike fusion, which has been "only 30 years away" for the last fifty years). Nuclear power is a completely solved problem that has been demonized to the point of extinction, in spite of the fact that it is clearly the way forward into energy freedom. It's just that the leftist elites don't want energy freedom - they only want energy for themselves, not the masses.
Nukes? Lessee: long-term high-level waste storage? Still unsolved.
Radiation release from the whole mining-milling stage? Still a huge problem.
Possibility of meltdown? Improved, for sure, over Three Mile Island and Chernobyl (and maybe even Fukushima!), but not solved yet.
How 'bout this: we've already found fusion power; it's this star a nice safe 93 million miles from us. Why not put it to use?
Long-term high-level waste storage is NOT an issue; it was made up by the same people who are fear-mongering nuclear power in general. The 'waste' that is being stored is actually FUEL for next-gen nuclear power systems. Modern molten-salt designs are much safer than older ones, more modular, and can use that 'waste' you mentioned as feed stock.
As for safety, nuclear power generation is historically MUCH safer than anything else. Think about how many fatalities (other than Chernoble - which no one in their right mind would use now) have been directly caused by nuclear power plant failures and compare that number the fatalities associated with traditional electric generation designs. There have been ZERO deaths due to nuclear power plant deaths in the U.S. On the other hand, coal-fired power plants have killed at least 460,000 people in the U.S. over the past 20 years. Any sane person would conclude we should rapidly replace all coal power plants with nuclear ones, but since that runs counter to the 'NUKES ARE EVIL' religion, we continue to let coal-fired plants run, killing more people every year
Sorry, friend, but that's just wrong. I've researched this whole nuclear-waste storage issue (wrote a prize-winning paper on it in college), so I know somewhat of what I speak.
If--IF--this somewhat pie-in-the-sky scheme of recyclable nuclear fuel that you speak of ever comes to pass, THEN we could consider PART of the problem to have been solved. For now, this scheme is just vaporware, plans on the drawing board for the "next-gen" nuke plants, the type being pushed by the likes of Bill Gates.
It's an elusive goal that's been tried before: remember "breeder reactors" back in the 1980s? The Clinch River Reactor project? Ended in failure, like so many other parts of the nuclear scheme.
"Zero deaths due to nuclear power" is a lie promulgated by the industry. Notice I used a different phrase than you did; it's true that there have been zero deaths directly tied to *nuclear power plants*. (Not counting, of course, whatever *civilian* deaths there were at Three Mile Island that haven't been proven, as such cancers are almost impossible to do.) There have been other catastrophic incidents, f'rinstance the uranium tailings pond breach on the Rio Puerco at Church Rock, NM, which released tons and tons of low-level radioactivity into the Colorado River. How many people in Los Angeles were affected by this? We'll probably never know.
Just curious Frank but how many nuclear plants are you taking
about verses coal fired plants and what would be the potential
size of the carpet of death zone of a failure of either....safety
features of each aside?
There are currently something like 25,000 electric power plants in the US, and only about 215 are coal powered - the others are all gas-powered. If nuclear power hadn't been so demonized over the last few decades, we could have already replaced ALL of the coal-powered plants with nuclear, using the same property already dedicated to the existing power plant; no ecological impact, no birds (including bald eagles, which used to be a felony) being maimed or killed, no air pollution, no noise pollution. If it sounds too good to be true, it isn't - we just haven't been able to implement a sane solution due to demonization of the technology. These guys would rather see huge swaths of wind turbines killing bald eagles by the thousands or huge swaths of solar panels also killing off the local flora and fauna rather than a simple - and safe - nuclear plant using a small fraction of one percent of the footprint. When historians look back on this period, this stupid inversion of safety versus efficiency will not be viewed kindly.
With respect to 'the carpet of death' you seem to think is associated with nuclear energy, do you have ANY evidence of this actually happening on any kind of scale? Even Chernoble, the worst possible disaster associated with a nuclear power plant, has had negligible impact on global health. Compared to the tens of thousands of deaths every year on U.S. highways (40,990 highway fatalities in 2023 alone), Chernoble doesn't even show up - it's down in the 4th decimal place somewhere. We could have a Chernoble every week in the U.S. and it wouldn't come close to matching our yearly highway slaughter. What can't you guys understand? Everybody thinks 40,990 deaths a year is no problem, but ONE POSSIBLE - MAYBE - SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE death that MIGHT BE associated with a nuclear power plant is a global disaster. And nobody seems to want to talk about the 'carpet of death' associated with wind turbines - whale species extinctions, bald eagle deaths by the thousands, and untold numbers of other bird and other species threatened by solar panel farms. Where are all the lawsuits attempting to stop solar/wind due to stress on some small lizard? Don't (or more accurately - didn't) lizards exist under solar panels and near wind turbine farms? Where are all the studies proving wind turbines kill bald eagles by the thousands? Are bald eagle deaths OK as long as we get our 'renewable' electric power for that portion of the day when they actually deliver energy?
So tell me - other than this insane BUT NUKES ARE BAD!!! ideological position, what exactly are you afraid of, and how can you possibly justify all the ecological damage done by the whole 'renewable energy' scam which is anything but renewable?
Mainly because it take huge swaths of biosphere to collect it.
That is the short answer.
Unused rooftops all over the world? Some not even visible from the ground. No need for huge "solar farms".
Love it! This is so true. I'm tired of all the self-hatred so many people seem to have. It's petty and disappointing.