"Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell."

What happens when we die. That's the big question that's plagued mankind since, probably, when the first synapse fired. Religion answers that question for the true believers and that, in my humble opinion, explains the various religions' popularity.

I'm not much of a spiritual person, never have been. But I do find solace in my simple belief. My simple belief answers that age old question as well, but my conclusion wont sit well with religion. Although, I guess, it could be considered a religion unto itself, a belief derived from science, mostly cosmology. It works for me.

I'm still decompressing from my week in hell. I've had this knocking around in my noggin for a few days. I haven't really formulated it into a complete essay, but for the want of something to read on this money induced Black Friday, I'll try to lay it out and maybe you all can help make it somewhat cogent.

The collectivism vs. individualism dichotomy is the focal point of the upside down world we've been living in the past few years, in my humble opinion. Individualism is being suppressed while collectivism is being forced upon us. The push is strong to corral us into a hive-mind existence, both in the physical and conceptual realms. There are strong forces at work as evidenced by this movement towards collectivism emanating from almost all of the western countries of the world, in unison.

We're supposed to give up everything we own, live in small cubicle-like dwellings and eat insects for sustenance. We're supposed to follow state diktats unquestionably and get in line for the latest thing. We're supposed to forget history, a history forged by rugged individualism. We're supposed give all to our so called "betters" for the sake of mankind, or some such. All for the good of us all, like good little automatons. In essence we will become The Borg.

The West is upside down.

We knew this was coming, didn't we.

I was born in 1954. It's hung over my head my whole life. Yours too I bet. I grew up reading dystopian novels, tales of vicarious journeys into the dark side of man, nightmares that lodged themselves into the recesses of our psyches, nudged there by notions that those stories were too wild to be true. After World Wars I and II we knew what mankind was capable of, but we were better than that. Better fools than we would have ourselves believe.

Then came the 1960s and the world turned upside down. Change was in the air. Much of the upheaval in the 60s was about today, we just didn't realize it then. Hell, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. Little did we know, that was the start. The road and the proverbial can were going downhill at an ever quickened pace. The can took the wrong fork somewhere on that road, and we followed.

After the effort for a better world, that was beaten down at the barrel of a gun at Kent State, life became about excess. All the while though, in the back of the mind, it loomed. Mankind seems more adept at rationalization than rationality. Did this predicament we find ourselves in today sneak up on us or did we fool ourselves into believing our own arrogance? Did we look away in lieu of the good life?

Much like Dorian Grey, we sat at the apex of man, and exchanged our nation's youthful vigor for the pleasures of abundance after making a deal with technology, and comfort. That deal is now coming due. And like Dorian, we look at the landscape that reflects our excesses, and we see what we have become. And it's ugly.

In the end, Dorian slashes, with a knife, at the hideous figure staring back at himself in the portrait, and in a stark realization becomes that which he feared. A dark, empty, and rotten shell of a man. Dead by his own hand.

"Get in, folks. We're building a better America."

I wont embed the tweet posted on October 3 by President Joe Biden. I'm sure most of you have seen it already, but I will highlight the disconnection between reality and political doctrine of this hypocritical statement made by the so called leader of the free world. The tweet contains the image below of the Big Guy in his '67 Corvette with the quote above about building "a better America".

It didn't have to be this way.

All wars are banker wars. Especially this one that threatens to consume us all. We stand on the threshold of annihilation by parasite, those that will suck the homonine corpus dry.

That bank statement. That's your life. That is your worth, digits on paper. Digits that represent the totality of your life's work. What we've been taught, what we structure our lives upon is reflected in that bank statement. The Man wants your life. Is it not obvious by now. You are a slave, by different means, yet still a slave. To the monied class.

This war is shaping up to be the mother of all banker wars. Its cause is the rich man's desire to continue feeding on the sweat and toil of your existence. They, the useless parasitic eater class, have gorged themselves for so long at your expense that they are willing to gamble it all away, all for the sake of their opulence.

Let us not forget what has gotten us to this point. Greed and power. Those that have brought us to the brink will not let go. They, that have caused the financial and geopolitical mess we find ourselves in want you to sacrifice everything so they can continue their rapacious ways.

It feels like we're stuck in history. Here we stand, in purgatory, between the old world order and the new world order. I didn't ask to be here and I'll bet you didn't either, but here we are. If mankind survives, in what form may yet be determined, historians will study this era like no other. We may be, right now, writing the final chapters of a book. A story that will never be duplicated again in the exact manner of biological circumstance. In the balance of evolution, we think of ourselves apart, because of our intellect. Unfortunately, branches do break off from the evolutionary tree.

The worst part is knowing we can't go back. And the future is most uncertain, to say the least. I'm sure most would agree that the past was far from perfect, and I'm sure most would agree that it now looks like paradise in the rear view mirror, with hell bearing down just up ahead, full tilt boogie.

How is it we are here? How is it so many existential means of destruction meet at the focus of mankind, in unison. Economic collapse, famine, climate upheaval, pandemic, war, we were warned for generations of these potential catastrophes, here they are upon us, all at the same time. Is it coincidence? Artificial? Natural? Does it matter?

Civilizations have stood at the crossroads before, but never on this scale or with so much at stake. It may seem like a positive feedback loop that's out of control, like it's totally out of our hands. Like there's nothing we can do to stop it. But I'm not so sure about that.

The terms hell for leather and hell-bent are similar but have different meanings. We will look at the meaning of hell for leather and hell-bent, where the terms come from and examine some examples of their use in sentences.

Hell for leather means as fast as possible. The term was first used in print in 1889 by Rudyard Kipling, specifically referring to riding a horse at breakneck speed. The leather in this case either refers to the leather in the saddle or the leather in the crop.

Hell-bent describes someone who is determined to do something no matter how the effort effects himself or anyone else, at any cost. Hell-bent is an adjective that carries a connotation of recklessness or foolishness, it is an American word that was first used in the early 1800s. Interestingly, a new term is beginning to emerge that combines hell for leather and hell-bent. Hell-bent for leather describes someone who is determined to do something no matter what the cost, and does it in a ferocious manner.

Source

The West sure seems not only hellbent for leather but hellbent for hell as well. Especially Europe. IMHO, the West's wealth is being hovered up at a rapid rate. There are so many things happening at once and it all appears to be aimed at the middle class. The rest of the West is being fleeced as well, but Europe is really in the hotseat.

I'm sitting here at my desk, Friday morning, unprepared and wondering what I am going to write about. I had a rough day yesterday mowing, trimming and pulling vines from a chain link fence which is always a great pleasure. If you've ever had to do that then you know about the exquisite jollification of intertwined vines and metal. The grass and all things green just took off with the recent long awaited rains here in east Texas. Today will be another day of mowing, 4 acres worth. It's good seeing green grass again.

Through the window I can see that damn squirrel on the bird feeder scarfing down all of the sunflower seeds again. It's a pesky little tree rat, as Fat Freddie would say, or was it Free Wheelin' Franklin? Invoking the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers always calms me. I wonder what those old boys would have to say about current affairs. Oh yeah, it would go something like "Weed will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no weed", or some such. It's that kind of philosophical wisdom that calms me, if you catch my drift.

I usually jump up and run outside and chase that fluffy tailed menace from the feeder, but you know what, it's just trying to survive like everything and everybody else. So I'm going to take a pass today and leave the squirrel alone. I think that's a sentiment that we'd all like to see more of in our lives. Just leave us alone and let us manage our lives as we seem fit. But you know how those damned power hungry megalomaniac types are. They like to poop in people's boots, just like Fat Freddie's cat.

Speaking of megalomaniacs. Are you all getting as tired of this Klaus Schwab character as much as I am? Just who the hell does he think he is? (See what I did there)? Does he really think he can rule the world? Does he really think he can tamp down human spirit? Good luck with that Dr. Evil.

I wonder what Klaus dreams about at night?

How are we divided? Let me count the ways.

Race, gender, economic class, religion, ethnicity, age, education, language, profession, geographic location, medical status, on and on and on. We have become so pigeon-holed and compartmentalized that a certain group wants to divide us further into human and trans-human entities. One is no longer able to just be "me", you must be labeled and categorized, many times over. Have we ever been so divided as we are now?

I purposely left out a big one on my list, politics, that which I think of as building "interpersonal walls", divisions which to me are a mental construct designed as a control mechanism. It has served psychopaths and sociopaths for millennia.

Here in the US politics boils down to a republican/democrat, red/blue dichotomy. Oh. sure, there are other subsets, but for intents and purposes, it is boiled down to the two party system. The system is rigged as such.

We here at c99 are at least trying to open discourse between the two factions with our nonpartisan discussion policy. In my humble opinion, we don't stand a chance unless we stand together and find common ground. I'll iterate again, the struggle is not horizontal, it is vertical. It's a class struggle.

The current political zeitgeist could make a person feel a bit schizo, no?

Courage comes in many forms. I believe it is inherent in all of us. Fear is the great inhibitor that may push it to the side or the catalyst that may bring it front and center. It may lay dormant, sometimes forever suppressed or it may ooze from every pore. Some may bluster about their courage only to fold under duress, some may be as timid as a mouse but rise as a lion in the face of adversity. Courage is an attribute that may manifest itself in ways that are totally surprising to the individual.