Tag Archives: Real Education

Jan 24 2024

The Personification of a “Battered Conservative”


Posted originally on the CTH on January 23, 2024 | Sundance

I have not done this in a while and generally don’t like doing it.  However, given the nature of our assembly and the absolute critical stages of the awakening that are afore us, it becomes a little more important to highlight and deconstruct a common refrain.

This example comes from the typeset of a poster named William Kenan Rand, who is triggered by the truthful expose’ about Ron DeSantis and the hidden manipulative intents and constructs that surrounded his fraudulent run for the Republican nomination.  I will set aside the motives of Mr. Rand, which I will say seem quite obvious. When you expose fraud, those who rely on a pretense to maintain fraud, are often triggered by the truth. I digress…

In essence, what is espoused here is a great example of “battered conservative” thinking.  So, I will walk through the deconstruction of it:

William Kenan Rand – “With all due respect and not wanting to get kicked out of here, just have to ask. DeSantis was trying to become president and working the system and that’s cunning and deceitful? Isn’t that just politics?”

If you accept that Machiavellian deceit, purposeful manipulation and lying is just politics, then yes, I guess the candidate you support, Ron DeSantis, is just another run of the mill liar in a long list of Republican run-of-the-mill liars.  Also, this would be precisely the reason not to support him.

“He ran a bad campaign and really was never going to beat Trump, but the idea seems to be because he had to appeal to the big money people in order to raise money, that’s he’s not his own man and just an establishment stooge.”

DeSantis didn’t run a bad anything.  The campaign was created for him, to use him. He was willful to the campaign intent.  You see, Ron DeSantis is not an employer, he is an employee of the system.  He does the bidding of those who sign the checks.  You seem to accept this as okay, without realizing the nature of that relationship makes him a political puppet to deliver an outcome that is entirely different from the stage performance you claim to want, and he promises to deliver.

“Ok, but you know, I don’t think the establishment was anti-lockdown or now anti-vax. If he is someone to just follow orders, why would he have done all the stuff he did as governor and take so much heat? If it’s just a cunning deceit to appeal to the base, well you’d think more Republicans would do the same but haven’t.”

Pro-Tip #1, the orders are often constructed to give the illusion of opposition.  Railing against something in order to garner popular support does not mean the politician is necessarily against the thing he decries.

“He was a little slow on the uptake for me in bucking the White House Covid task force recommendations, but he moved faster once he adjusted. Got a lot of other great things done as governor as well.”

Every “great thing” Ron DeSantis did as governor was specifically planned and intended to create the feeling of the “great thing” you hold dear.

“Trump’s agenda is basically Reagan’s with a more sophisticated understanding of trade and a better approach on immigration. It’s a great agenda. The establishment didn’t like Reagan either, btw.”

Trump’s agenda is much bigger than Ronald Reagan’s agenda, because those who control the globalist agenda grew their influence exponentially in the 35 years between President Reagan and President Trump.  The opposition to Donald Trump is 35 years more economically mature and developed.

“However, as great as those things are, we’re also facing a new front in the war with the globalists. Imo, we’re facing the greatest threat to humanity the world has ever faced absent perhaps the Tower of Babel. The transhumanist biowarfare depopulation program is a legit threat to the human species, our very lives and also to the natural world and our food.”

“Trump is an unbelievable fighter, but I don’t think he sees this. He is still proud of the vax and Operation Warp Speed when many like myself think he was snookered and it’s a bioweapon and part of a much deeper, sinister program. As great as he is, Trump doesn’t see it that way, it appears.”

These are the best two cognitively dissonant paragraphs written.

According to Mr. Rand, Trump is intellectually stupid, “snookered”, for not seeing the “globalist” threat as described, yet Mr. Rand cannot see the “globalist” threat created within the DeSantis operation.  Take the plank out of your own eye before worrying about the splinter in Trump’s.

You present the concern that Trump is blind and cannot see the globalist scheme, but at the same time you showcase your blindness and cannot see the globalist scheme you are defending.   Within this scenario, who exactly was “snookered” more?

“I said all that because we need guys like DeSantis in the party and in leadership roles who did start seeing it. Maybe DeSantis did not fully see it in the way I describe but he stood up to it, and we need people like that. Seems like Ron Johnson sees it too. It’s not just about the GOP establishment versus MAGA and economic nationalism, and there are a lot of nuances in there. OWS was not MAGA, for example.

A full spectrum approach is what’s needed and that has to entail recognizing the globalist biowarfare plans.” (LINK) 

You stand against “globalist biowarfare plans” while promoting the Ron DeSantis pretense the “biowarfare” planners created to fool you.   Can you not see the incredible irony that exists in the outcome created by those like yourself who are “battered conservative” victims, defending their abuser?

The people you do not like or trust created Ron DeSantis.  You like and trust Ron DeSantis.  See how that works?

♦ Last two points as espoused by similar voices infected with Battered Conservative Syndrome:

“We cannot put all our eggs in one basket (Trump)”… 

If I am to agree, I will agree.  So, bring me another basket.

Right now, there isn’t one, and the professionally Republican people keep showing us buckets instead of baskets.

It also does no good to put a bow on a bucket (DeSantis) and call it a basket.  It’s not a basket, it’s a bucket.

As my father often said, “You cannot catch fish in trees; so, why are you standing in the forest with your fishing pole?”

“Trump should have started a new political party”…

He did.

He called it MAGA.  We all signed up and registered.

MAGA then took over the Republican Party.

Look around, there are more of us than them.

It’s not us that needs to start a new party, it’s them.

They are refusing to leave our party, so we are having to escort them out.  That’s all.

Jan 1 2024

A New Year Awaits – 2024 Will Be as Awesome as We Create


Posted originally on the CTH on December 31, 2023 | Sundance


2023 has been one heck of a ride.  I mean, wow.

This is the year when so many assumptions collapsed because we did not pretend. I will have other thoughts on the year upon better reflection, even some predictions that might seem a little “out there”.  Then again, I’m not exactly known for following the herd safety formula.

However, as the eve winds down, and as we are given to considering everything that has taken place, a revisit to the spiritual core of our association is appropriate.

For me, this year provided many memorable gifts; almost all were driven by a purposeful God reminding me to keep poking my head into the human mechanics of common presumptions.  Nothing is more empowering than listening to His message, being completely lost yet jumping on faith, and then finding out the wow; why it was necessary to put prayer in front of fear.

Yup, we are about to walk into entirely new challenges.  Perhaps we are not prepared, perhaps we will all test our faith, perhaps we will discover new limits to our exhaustion, perhaps we will discover we are much stronger than we realize.  One of the reasons for my optimism is that I think the latter is assured.

I believe we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for.  I believe YOU are stronger, more purposeful, smarter, more strategic, more influential, more necessary and far more loved than you can ever imagine.

Yes, I am stunningly optimistic, much more so today on the last day of 2023, than I was on the first day.  The knowledge we possess is powerful – far more powerful than the pretenses we fight against.

Regardless of how we exit this year, excited or slightly nervous, we must admit it can be challenging to retain a joyful ‘best life’ while everything around us seems created to deliver ultimate chaos and madness.

However, if we accept that a loving God is the source of the purest truth, we can create something stronger within ourselves just by making a choice.   Do that, choose that, follow that and we will have accomplished a great deal.

Regardless of what tomorrow brings, we always have choices.  A new year’s perspective:

I have long felt that life is like a series of links in a chain. You might be driving down the road and you hear a song on the radio, or see a picture, and you feel a memory….

Something triggers within you that reminds of a different time and place than where you are right now.

You reflect.

The memories you consider remind you of a totally different time in your life.

Perhaps you lived in a different place.  Perhaps you were surrounded by different people. Perhaps a different job or completely different friends. You recognize those memories were constructed like frozen moments in time.  They became individual links in the chain in your life.

We never actually realize, in the immediate moment, when one link closes and another link begins. But when we look back, we can clearly see distinct points where things changed, the link closed, and a new link began.

You see, the links are only visible in reflection.

As we reflect, we find parts of the chain in our life where each link closes and connects with the other. A beginning, and an end. At the point where the links are joined, we carry parts of the previous link forward to the next.

For many people those connections are bonded by family, or very strong lifelong relationships. Connections which continue beyond our geographic moments, jobs or temporary acquaintances.

But for everyone, the primary bonding agent brought forward from one link to the next is us, our center, our values and core principles. Our beliefs.

The strength of the steel which comprises the links of our life is forged in the fire of adversity, weakness, challenge, pain, loss, and painful growth. The steel is then cooled with the tears of triumph, hurdles overcome and resolve.

The forging makes the steel stronger and able to withstand the pressures that accompany the additional length. Slowly the chain becomes wiser as it lengthens. Able to reach further, form more significant benefits and become more useful.

Hope replaces fear. Love replaces loneliness. Success replaces adversity. These are successful links began and finished while contributing to the whole.

At times we may manipulate the links with avoidance. We hide from -or choose to avoid- an issue in our effort to begin a new link before the old one was naturally, and spiritually, prepared to be closed.

Eventually, as life continues and the chain lengthens, the weak link can fracture, and we are forced to revisit/repair what we originally chose to avoid.

You see, in life we cannot control the universal laws that guide us. So, if we manipulate circumstances to avoid confronting our own weakness, we cannot fully strengthen our life of links. Eventually, the weakness of our past will impact our future.

So, what principles do we carry from link to link? What core values and beliefs stay with us throughout the journey of our lives? The answers to these questions are what makes us human spiritual beings.

We possess free will able to make choices about what we do, and how we define our individual humanity; but can we then define ’right’ and ‘wrong’ according to our individual principles? Or are there principles that exceed our influence and definition?

Are there natural laws of right and wrong, good and bad, that cannot be subjected to the determination of man?

These are the bigger questions, perhaps the more important questions; and yet, perhaps the ones we reflect upon the least.

Consider the example of the ‘Law of the Farm’ vs. the ‘Law of the School’. Natural principles vs. those made by man.

A student can skip class, take few notes, pay only half attention, then stay up all night cramming for a test and manage a decent grade. It depends on the student’s goal: grades or learning.

The student can choose to manipulate the education, by avoiding the learning and capturing the grade. This is possible in the ‘Law of the School’.

However, a farmer cannot take short cuts. A farmer cannot avoid tending to the soil, preparing the seed, fertilizing and nurturing the crop, and still gain the benefit of an abundant harvest.

The farmer must necessarily do all of the appropriate work in order to benefit from it. Such is the ‘Law of the Farm’, the natural law.

When one considers the weakness remaining within a poorly constructed and manipulated link, perhaps established by selfish choices and driven by avoidance and fear, one can be faithfully assured those who have dealt dishonestly with us will have to visit the issues of their association again.

Conversely, no amount of manipulation or avoidance on our own behalf is going to improve the frailty of any link without first resolving the lack of character which created the weakness.

So, we have choices in our lives. Decisions we each make regarding how we interact and participate in the lives and links of others, as well as how we choose to construct the links that comprise our own lives.

Do we base our sense of purpose around natural principles? Principles based on natural laws of right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies.  Do we forge strong links by following our heart, our values?

If we can interact with others absent of a prideful self-driven agenda, or manipulative intent, we can then apply such principles and strength to our endeavors.

If we protect the integrity of the soil upon which we build the foundation of our lives, we can live without regret.

If we fertilize and cherish our crop, and the crop of our neighbor, with honesty and sincere appreciation for the souls we meet along our chosen path, we will live a life of abundance.

If we tend carefully to the consideration of everyone, yet holding true to our values and principles, we can strengthen ourselves amid the face of adversity and disenchantment.

If we do not hide from, nor ignore our individual and collective faults, we can build the chain of our life with strength, humility, and purpose.

I wish for each of you a long chain of bold, strong, beautiful links, polished with the reflective brilliance of Love, and the very happiest of blessings for a brand-New Year.

Abiding love to all.

Steadfast,

~ Sundance

…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

Dec 26 2023

What Kind of American Are You?


Posted originally on Dec 26, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

What Kind of American Are You

This new movie coming out in the Spring of 2024 by A24 will be a blockbuster. The line “What kind of American are you?” is such a profound question that illustrates the deep division within this country. Historically, the army will split and choose sides. The proposition of the Great Taking is really a misconception of history and the confiscation of gold. If the government took everything from everybody, they would be overthrown instantly. The only way the government would survive is with the army. Strip them also of assets and their families, and the government will fall.

Yeltsin Tank

However, the greater risk is the deep division that will erupt after the 2024 election, pitting left v right, and that alone would turn bloody. However, even that is not the greatest risk. The government could bring in troops from the UN and NATO, just as in the NIKA Revolt. The Russian coup failed when Yeltsin stood on that tank, and the soldiers did not fire on their own people. The political solution is to have foreign troops who would have no problem killing people.

Killer Robots

That is also why the government wants automated drones and robots. They will follow orders and kill indiscriminately. Without military force, governments collapse. They know that. They teach the NIKA solution in political parlance.

Dec 23 2023

The Simple Things


Posted originally on the CTH on December 22, 2023 | Menagerie 


In this most busy and demanding time of the year, many still have the hope and desire to pursue happiness, to savor the moments and find that special something that replenishes us, fulfills us.

How strange, that we must stop, pause, slow down at least, to find that which keeps us going.

I think that part of our problem is our push to do more and do it more perfectly. As I have aged, I have necessarily had to learn to appreciate the slow moments, the silent moments. Of course, that should have come to me earlier in life, but I have ever been a plodding and slow learner.

How many wonderful, special, unique moments has our Lord gifted me with throughout my life that I rushed past, never listening, hearing his call, stopping to savor, share, enjoy with him? Moments crafted by the Master’s hand with love, moments he intended for me, for us, moments he came calling, only to have me never pause in my headlong rush?

How many times did I give up the peace I longed for, the joy I hoped for, all the things I insistently begged him for, wondering why he didn’t answer?

This morning I was early up, and puttering around, tending my sourdough starter, dividing it up, feeding multiple bowls in order to grow enough to make my various recipes for Christmas dinner and friends.

I found such happiness, really joy, in this simple task. My heart has filled with gratitude and wonder in these quiet moments alone, seeing to a simple task that leads to work I’m good at, to a simple hobby of mine, a thing I long ago longed to learn as an outpouring of love to my family, and especially for my husband who simply loves breads.

I have never had a bread machine, and I treasure the many, many times I bury my hands in the dough, kneading and pulling, twisting and forming. Now I understand a little bit why those hands-on moments meant so much to me.

For a few minutes, I put away me, and all my racing thoughts, my long list of things to get done, my annoyances at even the people I loved, everything. I put it all down and accepted a special, precious time given just to me by the God who loves me and gives me untold graces in such magical, wonderful ways as kneading bread and feeding sourdough.

Today I learned something from my bubbly sourdough brew, and I hope to be more attentive to those special moments because of it.

Maybe you can find your special moments these next few days in whatever unexpected and wonderful ways our Lord offers you. Don’t look for it in perfection though. I think you’re more likely to find it in the simpler things.

Dec 22 2023

Christmas Recipes, Past and Present


Posted originally on the CTH on December 21, 2023 | Menagerie

December 21, 2023 | Menagerie | 51 Comments


At our family’s Christmas dinner, you will find a combination of old favorites and new recipes we are trying out for the first time. Some of our favorites come to us from generations long gone now, and have stood the test of time. But it seems each year the cooks in the family try out new things and we very much enjoy the additions. Sometimes we find one that’s a keeper and we will see it next year.

Pull out those tattered, faded favorites and share them with us, as well as the newly discovered dishes you want to try.

I am grateful especially at this time of year for the women who taught me to cook so long ago, my wonderful mother in law, as well as my husband’s paternal grandmother and aunt. I had no idea at the time that they were teaching me a skill that would nourish family and friends in ways other than eating.

Dec 20 2023

Financial Literacy Courses Coming to US Schools


Posted originally on Dec 20, 2023 By Martin Armstrong |

Education

Public schools in America are not required to teach financial literacy. We have seen the repercussions of America’s financial illiteracy over the decades and it will be absolutely crucial to understand basic personal finance during this volatile time. A new Pennsylvania law ensures that 53% of high school students in the US will have guaranteed access to a mandatory financial education course. Currently, eight states guarantee that students will take a personal finance course, and 17 states are in the process of implementing similar policies. This initiative is aimed at equipping students with essential financial knowledge before graduation.

A study by Walden University found that 4 in 7 Americans are financially illiterate and cannot manage their personal finances. The study believes finance should be introduced in schools at a kindergarten level, no different from math, reading, or other pillars. The National Financial Educators Council estimates that 254 million Americans were financially illiterate as of 2022, costing Americans $436 billion.

Education

The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I reported in 2022 that even one-third of high-income citizens earning over $250,000 annually were also living paycheck to paycheck, as inflation does not discriminate based on income. We have seen hardship 401K withdrawals increase this year. Credit card debt is the highest it has ever been. A survey by Clever Real Estate found that 64% of Gen Xers have stopped saving for retirement as they are either paying off past debt or simply cannot afford to save.

The US government also knows that the next generation will NEVER see Social Security. Retirement is now viewed as an unobtainable luxury to most. Social Security is not enough to live on alone, and a good portion of the nation simply does not have the savings to exit the workforce. Financial literacy is crucial to our nation’s success and this one piece of government funding I believe could pay off in the long-term.