There is a "prepper author," I think Rawles, who actually states in one of his books that learning how to make alcoholic drinks might be a life-saving skill in a post-collapse world. Anyone can wield an axe, but not everyone can brew beer or make wine…
…distill hydroxylated carbon chains
I feel like everyone and their brother are brewing their own beer nowadays.
Yeah, but when the SHTF, do you want to rely on others for your beer supply? I think not!
Time2help,
In the case of an Electoral College deadlock or if no candidate receives the majority of votes, a “contingent election” is held. The election of the President goes to the House of Representatives. Each state delegation casts one vote for one of the top three contenders to determine a winner.
Two Presidential elections in 1800 and 1824 have been decided in the House.
http://history.house.gov/Institution/Electoral-College/Electoral-College/
David
Chris,
I listened to your first show with Beck where he said that you two think just alike. Do you feel that you two think just alike too? I know what he has been saying about Alexander Dugin in Russia. With the obvious influence that Vladimir Putin's political advisor has, I'm still curious to learn what you think of the leader of the Eurasian fascists movement growing out of Russia.
First pressing https://www.facebook.com/100009934966033/videos/vb.100009934966033/357397724601390/?type=3&theater
Sorry David, I don't buy the Russian hacking story. Credibility is a highly undervalued commodity. Our government has had difficulties with the truth too many times. Nothing they say can be taken at face value anymore. This Russian story has been one vast & vague assertion devoid of any hard evidence.
The Dworkin Report exposes the multiple ties President-elect Trump to Vladimir Putin and Russia.
https://www.scribd.com/document/330989098/Dworkin-Report-Trump-Russian-Ties-Unabridged-11-13-2016
In addition to a quick overview of Trump’s 24 known connections, a list of links at the bottom of each report allows the reader to investigate the supporting resources for themselves.
Here are a few the exhibits exposed within the report:
The Alt Right's nihilistic messages are easy to connect back to the Russian propaganda machine because many of them purposefully overt and are in plain sight. Social media has allowed experts with decades of experience like Vladimir Putin (former leader of the KGB) the greatest propaganda tool ever. The world wide web has allowed Russia to originate the propaganda overtly from “white” news sources like RT News, pass along propaganda in the US to feed uncertainty with “gray” sources like Infowars, and hired an army of covert or “black” operatives in the form of hecklers, honeypots, and trolls to create an echo chamber to reinforce the propaganda.
The Russians are pushing four general themes. Their political message is designed to tarnish democratic leaders and institutions with allegations of voter fraud, election rigging, and political corruption. Financially they push fear over the national debt and are constantly attacking the soundness of institutions like the Federal Reserve. To undermine the fabric of society they purposefully aggravate racial tensions in the US. And finally propagate wide-ranging conspiracy theories promoting fear of pending worldwide calamities and questioning any expert who might try to calm those fears.
http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/
Now the Russian propaganda machine is using that "war on the very concept of objective truth" George Orwell talked about to cover their tracks, to "Undermining public confidence in everyone but the Maximum Leader."
Asked and answered. Thanks.
The reason why GDP growth is lagging behind credit growth is because money velocity is decreasing. ANd keep in mind our GDP is inflated by accounting tricks, borrowing from future consumption and by bloating service sector (in particular financial). So reality is far more grim than what it really looks like.
But it gets really grim when you start to understand why money velocity is decreasing. Its falling ERoEI. As ERoEI continues to decrease so will money velocity. As long as ERoEI is still above 1 new credit creation still has some effect. Once this isnt true anymore new credit wont do anything. And then the ultimate bubble will pop - the population bubble. And that my friend is the real predicament.
I just finished stacking roughly 18,000,000 BTU's of cordwood for next year. I probably burned up 600 calories doing it. Not a bad ERoEI. I don't have the "six-pack" of years gone by, but my kids know better than to mess with me, even in my advancing years. "Old age and treachery always overcome youth and skill", eh?
http://www.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/chop-your-way-to-a-solid-core
I think I'll go in and have a "hot-toddy"; I think I've earned it.
David,
So by this logic we can say that the objective truth is:
I suspect the irony of subjecting us to these partisan propaganda screeds, to convince us we are dupes of propaganda is lost on you.
mememonkey
Please fill in the blanks to pass the message.
I know... I am not contributing anything... just saying that every side is guilty of manipulating. They all have dirty hands.The < Please fill> nihilistic messages are easy to connect back to the <Please fill> propaganda machine because many of them purposefully overt and are in plain sight. Social media has allowed experts with decades of experience like <Please fill> (former leader of the <Please fill>) the greatest propaganda tool ever. The world wide web has allowed <Please fill> to originate the propaganda overtly from “white” news sources like <Please fill>, pass along propaganda in <Please fill> to feed uncertainty with “gray” sources like Infowars, and hired an army of covert or “black” operatives in the form of hecklers, honeypots, and trolls to create an echo chamber to reinforce the propaganda.
The <Please fill> are pushing four general themes. Their political message is designed to tarnish democratic leaders and institutions with allegations of <Please fill>, <Please fill>, and political corruption. Financially they push fear over the national debt and are constantly attacking the soundness of institutions like the <Please fill>. To undermine the fabric of society they purposefully aggravate <Please fill>. And finally propagate wide-ranging conspiracy theories promoting fear of pending worldwide calamities and questioning any expert who might try to calm those fears.
<Please insert one link here>
Now the <Please fill> propaganda machine is using that "war on the very concept of objective truth" George Orwell talked about to cover their tracks, to "Undermining public confidence in everyone but the <Please fill>."
Ok, back to real work now (Preparing Warré hives for the coming season).
Civil War. Civil War is how it would play out. Trump would refuse to step down, Generals would have to decide to pick sides, and Civil War would result. It is utter lunacy.
Unless, of course, he has a vested interest in maintaining the prevailing meme, which seems to me likely.
I'll go ahead and throw out there that I will re-open my thoughts on this hacking thing when and if actual verifiable proof of said hacking can be presented, rather than circumstantial connections between players in this game. Then again, I have no doubt that if actual verifiable evidence was ever presented, most people here would alter their thinking.
-S
America's Coup Machine: Destroying Democracy Since 1953
April 8, 2014, by Nicolas JS Davies, in alternet
This review article gives several examples and a taste of the unbelievable breadth of this global conquest operation. In order to shorten the article, I will focus on Ukraine as an example and the general principles of how regime change is carried out.
from the article
Noam Chomsky calls William Blum's classic, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, [here ] "Far and away the best book on the topic." If you're looking for historical context for what you are reading or watching on TV about the coup in Ukraine, Killing Hope will provide it. The title has never been more apt as we watch the hopes of people from all regions of Ukraine being sacrificed on the same altar as those of people in Iran (1953); Guatemala(1954); Thailand (1957); Laos (1958-60); the Congo (1960); Turkey (1960, 1971 & 1980); Ecuador (1961 & 1963); South Vietnam (1963); Brazil (1964); the Dominican Republic (1963); Argentina (1963); Honduras (1963 & 2009); Iraq (1963 & 2003); Bolivia (1964, 1971 & 1980); Indonesia (1965); Ghana (1966); Greece (1967); Panama (1968 & 1989); Cambodia (1970); Chile (1973); Bangladesh (1975); Pakistan (1977); Grenada (1983); Mauritania (1984); Guinea (1984); Burkina Faso (1987); Paraguay (1989); Haiti (1991 & 2004); Russia (1993); Uganda (1996);and Libya (2011). This list does not include a roughly equal number of failed coups, nor coups in Africa and elsewhere in which a U.S. role is suspected but unproven.
The disquieting reality of the world we live in is that America [works] to destroy democracies, even as it pretends to champion democracy…. When Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, at the height of the genocidal American war on Iraq, he devoted much of his acceptance speech to an analysis of this dichotomy. He said of the U.S., "It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis… Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very clever."
The basic framework of U.S. coups has hardly evolved since 1953. … .the U.S. has always preferred "low-intensity conflict" to full-scale invasions and occupations. The CIA and U.S. special forces use proxies and covert operations to overthrow governments and suppress movements that challenge America's insatiable quest for global power. This model has three stages:
1) Creating and strengthening opposition forces
In the early stages of a U.S. plan for regime change… include forming and funding conservative political parties, student groups, trade unions and media outlets, and running well-oiled propaganda campaigns both in the country being targeted and in regional, international and U.S. media.
… [In Chile] The CIA produced 20 radio spots per day that were broadcast on at least 45 stations, as well as dozens of fabricated daily "news" broadcasts. Thousands of posters depicted children with hammers and sickles stamped on their foreheads…
In Ukraine, the U.S. has worked since independence in 1991 … and former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich was elected President in 2010.
The U.S. employed all its traditional tactics leading up to the coup in 2014. The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has partially taken over the CIA's role in grooming opposition candidates, parties and political movements, with an annual budget of $100 million to spend in countries around the world.
The NED made no secret of targeting Ukraine as a top priority, funding 65 projects there, more than in any other country. The NED's neoconservative president, Carl Gershman, called Ukraine "the biggest prize" in a Washington Post op-ed in September 2013, as the U.S. operation there prepared to move into its next phase. (this article was published in 2014)
2) Violent street demonstrations
In November 2013, the European Union presented President Yanukovich with a 1,500 page "free trade agreement," similar to NAFTA or the TPP, but which withheld actual EU membership from Ukraine. The agreement would have opened Ukraine's borders to Western exports and investment without a reciprocal opening of the EU's borders. Ukraine, a major producer of cheese and poultry, would have been allowed to export only 5% of its cheese and 1% of its poultry to the EU. Meanwhile Western firms could have used Ukraine as a gateway to flood Russia with cheap products from Asia. This would have forced Russia to close its borders to Ukraine, shattering the industrial economy of Eastern Ukraine.
Understandably, and for perfectly sound reasons as a Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich rejected the EU agreement. This was the signal for pro-Western and right-wing groups in Kiev to take to the street. In the West, we tend to interpret street demonstrations as representing surges of populism … [though paid protestors were bussed in to the cities in busses provided by anonymous donors.]
In Ukraine, street protests turned violent in January 2014 as the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and the Right Sector militia took charge of the crowds in the streets. The Right Sector militia only appeared in Ukraine in the past 6 months, although it incorporated existing extreme-right groups and gangs. It is partly funded by Ukrainian exiles in the U.S. and Europe, and may be a creation of the CIA. After Right Sector seized government buildings, parliament outlawed the protests and the police reoccupied part of Independence Square, killing two protesters.
On February 7th, the Russians published an intercepted phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. The intercept revealed that U.S. officials were preparing to seize the moment for a coup in Ukraine. The transcript reads like a page from a John Le Carre novel: "I think we're in play… we could land jelly-side up on this one if we move fast." Their main concern was to marginalize heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who had become the popular face of the "revolution" and was favored by the European Union, and to ensure that U.S. favorite Arseniy Yatsenyuk ended up in the Prime Minister's office.
On the night of February 17th, Right Sector announced a march from Independence Square to the parliament building on the 18th. This ignited several days of escalating violence in which the death toll rose to 110 people killed, including protesters, government supporters and 16 police officers. More than a thousand people were wounded. Vyacheslav Veremyi, a well-known reporter for a pro-government newspaper, was dragged out of a taxi near Independence Square and shot to death in front of a crowd of onlookers.
Right Sector broke into an armory near Lviv and seized military weapons, and there is evidence of both sides using snipers to fire from buildings in Kiev at protesters and police in the streets and the square below. Former security chief Yakimenko believes that snipers firing from the Philharmonic building were U.S.-paid foreign mercenaries, like the snipers from the former Yugoslavia who earn up to $2,000 per day shooting soldiers in Syria.
As violence raged in the streets, the government and opposition parties held emergency meetings and reached two truce agreements, one on the night of February 19th and another on the 21st, brokered by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland. But Right Sector rejected both truces and called for the "people's revolution" to continue until Yanukovich resigned and the government was completely removed from power.
3) The coup d'etat.
The creation and grooming of opposition forces and the spread of violence in the streets are deliberate strategies to create a state of emergency as a pretext for removing an elected or constitutional government and seizing power. Once the coup leaders have been trained and prepared by their CIA case officers, U.S. officials have laid their plans and street violence has broken down law and order and the functioning of state institutions, all that remains is to strike decisively at the right moment to remove the government and install the coup leaders in its place.
In Ukraine, Vitaly Klitschko announced that parliament would open impeachment proceedings against Yanukovich, but, later that day, lacking the 338 votes required for impeachment, a smaller number of members simply approved a declaration that Yanukovich "withdrew from his duties in an unconstitutional manner," and appointed Oleksandr Turchynov of the opposition Fatherland Party as Acting President. Right Sector seized control of government buildings and patrolled the streets. Yanukovich refused to resign, calling this an illegal coup d'etat. The coup leaders vowed to prosecute him for the deaths of protesters, but he escaped to Russia. Arseniy Yatsenyuk was appointed Prime Minister on February 27th, exactly as Nuland and Pyatt had planned.
Since 1953, most U.S. coups have involved using local senior military officers to deliver the final blow to remove the elected or ruling leader. The officers have then been rewarded with presidencies, dictatorships or other senior positions in new U.S.-backed regimes.
Readers who rely on "reputable mainstream news sources" are profoundly miss-informed.
mememonkey,
I think the concept of a democracy that seeks the objective truth is solid and works fine if that is what we are truly striving for. The main reason our democracy isn't working is because too many of our leaders have intentionally been trying to undermine our enlightened based democracy since the 1950's so that they could turn America into a corporately control theocracy instead.
The biggest fraud I see is gerrymandered districts and multitudes of voter restriction laws designed to limit rather than expand voting. Democracy works much better when people are encouraged or required to participate more and people weren't tripping over each other to cheat the system.
America had a budget surplus in 1996. We would have paid off our national debt entirely by 2014 if we had stuck to Clinton's budget plan. But that was blown when Bush lied us into Iraq and gave his war profiteering buddies tax cuts three times as costly.
The Central Banking system here in Canada works fine, because they play by the objective rules and no one is trying to intentionally undermine the entire system. Unlike the United States where either the bankers take total advantage, or where the Fed is constantly being undermined by the same industrialists that tried to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt with a coup in 1933 and replace him with a dictator demanding a return to the gold standard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9OFRdCq56k
Health care is another example of where the American people have been duped. In the US I paid $600/month for a family of four with $1,000s in deductibles, a 20% copay, that was increased to about 40% after you add in the cost of denials. In Canada I pay $150/month for basic health care for a family of four with no deductible, copays, or denials. Americans could cut their medical cost in half, by simply adopting socialized healthcare like everyone else. Imagine how much money individuals could save for college or retirement if their medical cost were cut in half. It would be a Godsend for most people, including the wealthy, because their's is only $150/month too.
But Americans have been duped (by the very religion that is supposed to help the less fortunate) into believing that social programs like these are evil and are to be blamed for everything including the national debt. When its really the endless wars and deeper tax cuts to the war profiteers that are really to blame.
There is also a carbon tax in BC by adding a pollution tax that reduced people's income tax and boosted the provinces GDP. It saved one of the school districts several $100,000/year when it encouraged him to switch from heating oil to heat pumps instead.
The institution of democracy works fine in countries throughout the world where they seek the objective truth as designed. But democracies throughout history are rare and therefore fragile. Democracy and any institution is likely to fail If people are intentionally trying to cheat or try to undermine it. Like the Conservative Christians have tried to do. Like the international corporations have tried to do. Like the Australian economists continually trying to dissolve the Fed have tried to do. Or like how Vladimir Putin is really stirring the pot, by feeding his anti-government propaganda to such a receptive American audience.
