I was reading Collected Letters vol 3 by H.P. Lovecraft for the first time this week, and his letters never cease to amaze me how prophetic, and intelligent he was in regards to life on this planet, especially human nature, extrapolated out to aesthetics, politics, and history.  That is to say, 'civilisation.'

Please read this and tell me it is not the spitting image of what is going on right now.  This letter was written about a hundred years ago, in about 1929.

It's main themes are the 'current obsession with quantity and speed vs quality and aesthetics, and learning:

As for democracy-I don't really see much to add to what I said before. The whole thing is as much an illusion as "romantic love"-only it happens to be the illusion of the 20th century instead of the 19th. It is a mere deification of the ethical abstraction of "justice," plus the crude modernistic devotion to quantity as opposed to quality. If made a cardinal principle, it can do nothing but harm to civilisation ....  The evil is very definitely on the increase, and will probably spread until it has lowered our culture to a level scarcely endurable to a  civilised being-unless, by chance, a counter-movement of intellectual-aesthetic aristocracy can somehow manage to coexist with a state of social-political democracy. 

The social-political future of the United States is one of domination by vast economic interests devoted to ideals of material gain, aimless activity, & physical comfort-interests controlled by shrewd, insensitive, & not often well-bred leaders recruited from the standardised herd through a competition of hard wit & practical crafti-ness-a struggle for place & power which will eliminate the true & the beautiful as goals, & substitute the strong, the huge, & the mechanically effective. I'd hate to have descendants living in such a barbarism-a barbarism so tragically different from the old civilisation of New England & Virginia which rightly belongs to this land. Thank God I'm the last of my family-requiescamus in pace!...

If everybody in a nation could be given the mellow culture that characterises the nation's highest thought, there would of course be no need for social classes. But it simply can't be done. There's no way of establishing a set of influences calculated to ensure the high education, emotional refinement, & civilised living of uncounted millions of people doing thousands of different things. Obviously, if a civilisation is to exist, a certain number of individuals must be given a training & environment above the average, with more than the average opportunities for freedom, influence, & self-expression. This is virtually axiomatic except among utterly irrational & ethics-mad communists & I.W.W.'s..

.. At present it cannot be said that the life of any civilised & sensitive man in America is really worth living-except so far as he is able to make an imaginative escape from the encroaching milieu, either into the past of his culture-stream or into a fantastic & hypothetical future of his own dreaming. 

Clods can stand the usurping barbarism very well-it quite expresses their utilitarian minds & stunted personalities-but fully evolved human beings will have to return to the old world unless some-thing can be done toward restoring the civilisation of the new. 

Already the exodus of sensitive men to France & England is becoming marked. The quantity ideal of the overspeeded machine "civilisation" of this continent is too utterly sterile to make the process of consciousness bear-able to anyone of evolved imagination & delicately attuned emotions. There is no reward for keeping alive-no food for the myriad spiritual hungers of the civilised personality. It became that way in later Imperial Rome, & sensitive men had to flee to the Hellenistic East-to Alexandria & Athens, Pegamus & Antioch-in order to find an air that they could breath....
...group of I's becomes strong enough to challenge it. Then the new group wins & reigns until another group gets strong enough to depose & sup-plant it. As long as the humanistic I-element remains a motivating force, democracy cannot exist. WHAT IS NOW MAKING DEMOC-RACY NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT SADLY INEVITABLE IS THE DECLINE OF THE HUMANISTIC I-ELEMENT AS THE GROWTH OF THE MACHINE AGE DESTROYS HUMANISM & SPLITS UP THE LIFE OF MEN INTO ROBOT ME-CHANICALISM & ANIMAL SIMPLICITY. HUMANISM & DEMOCRACY CAN-NOT COEXIST

 Democracy means decadence the triumph of the machine over the individual. 

Democracy, we agree, is inevitable in the early machine M age. BUT WHAT THEN? Here is the situation in a nutshell-2100 or 2200 A. D. Huge machine barbarism with incredible physical luxury & a vast ruling class of highly intelligent men trained to think in terms of money, size, speed, profit, & activity for its own sake. 

Technique & machinery so perfected that there are too many intelligent men for the number of directive jobs requiring them; a wealthy surplus trained to think so materially that aesthetic & intellectual traditions will be virtu-ally closed to them. A new aristocracy without the souls of aristocrats. Here is where your common-peepulism breaks down. This aristocracy will be open to all-but who save its own members can mentally qualify? Remember that it was produced by the selection of all the first-rate brains (never a great percentage) in the race. What of the surplus? 

To me it looks very much like the old story of wine, woman, & chance just what you object to in the baser elements of the present aristocracy! You see, history has quite a repetitive tendency, & you can't dodge the order of nature-which is essentially stratified no matter how many ethical illusions you pile on! Of course it is conceivable that even in a machine age a new aristocratic culture might be worked out by the lei-sure class. That would bely both your wishes & my antimachine predictions, but it is possible.

 Given a few generations of enforced leisure through lack of jobs, the wealthy surplus may at last turn to ways of cultivation & try to recapture the art of life the art of being instead of doing, & of enjoying quality instead of quantity. But it will be uphill work, for the lack of traditional background & the standardisation of a mechanised world won't be any myth or joke. Below this administrative & surplus ruling-class there will naturally be a fairly large subordinate-executive or manager class composed of moderate, third-rate intellects.

 This may be an independent stratum made up of rising proletarians, belted by limited brains, or it may be a social appendage of the ruling class, recruited from the occasional inferior minds from which the superior stock will breed. And below this, infinitely varied within itself according to occupation, but virtually brainless because it will be the residue of a selective process, will be the vast industrial proletariat—well-fed, well-housed, well-amused, well-clothed, well-medicated, well-treated, and well-flattered; living its half-animal, half-vegetable round in perfect physical comfort, and with ample leisure for as much diversion as its brains will enable it to enjoy. It will have the privilege of rising as high as it can, but its potentialities of ascent will have long been exhausted. It will be the utter and implicit property of its intelligent masters, free in law and tradition but in fact completely and benevolently enslaved. 



The only place I would disagree with him is that I am not a materalist, and I don't think that our 'ruling class' is that intelligent at all. Maybe they used to be.....
Tune the idiots into their 'smart phones' and 'subscriptions of content' with the illusion of choice, and slowly kill the love of learning , reading, and thinking, and foster blind pursuit of pleasure. Check....

To answer that question we will never know as the shooter after pulling a second pistol shot himself. 

Sometimes all it takes is one brave man to stop evil; this hero was lucky IMO as the shooter had a second hand gun.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/rhod...36415.html

Quote:The trans suspect who opened fire at a Rhode Island ice hockey rink on Monday killed his ex-wife and adult son, authorities said, while his daughter alleged he had a "vendetta" against the family.
Robert Dorgan, 56, fatally shot his ex-wife, Rhonda Dorgan, at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket as well as his son Aidan Dorgan, who later died at the hospital, North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi said, according to WCVB.
Three other victims were injured in the shooting, including Linda and Gerald Dorgan, who were the parents of Rhonda Dorgan. Both Linda and Gerald are currently hospitalized in critical condition, according to the outlet.
Rhode Island Ice Rink Shooting Suspect's Gender Identity Was Source Of Past Family Conflict: Docs


Police respond outside the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, after the Feb. 16, 2026, shooting. At right is Robert Dorgan, identified by police as the suspect, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(Getty Images)

The third victim was identified as Thomas Geruso, a friend of the Dorgan family, who is also in critical condition.
The shooter, who identified as transgender, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Read On The Fox News App
"I just want to make sure people understand this was one person’s vendetta against their family," Amanda Wallace-Hubbard, Dorgan’s daughter, told WPRI-TV. "We were targeted. This was very specific. It wasn’t random."
Wallace-Hubbard, Robert Dorgan’s daughter from another relationship, said she was with her two young sons and the rest of the family in the stands when the shooting occurred. She described Rhonda as her stepmother and Aidan as her half-brother.
She credited an unidentified good Samaritan with saving her life and those of her sons. The individual is seen tackling Robert Dorgan in footage from the shooting, per WPRI-TV.

I enjoy Danny Jones' videos. This is wild... David Icke vibes for sure 








[/url]Holden Culotta


@Holden_Culotta
[url=https://x.com/Holden_Culotta]
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2h

This CIA historian just revealed that some of the most elite families in America held a secret séance in 1952.

Nine members of the Du Pont, Astor and Forbes families summoned a UFO.

And they were told:

“You’re going to be instrumental in controlling the fate of this planet.”

Hear Peter Levenda break down this wild story with Danny Jones:

Andrija Puharich, who weaponized paranormal phenomena for US intelligence agencies, organized and led the séance.

And this wasn’t the only one.

He led several secret, elite séances.

“Arthur Young, Ruth Forbes Young, plus an Astor and a Du Pont, and all these other names from American financial history, they’re all at a farmhouse in Maine.”

“There’s an Indian gentleman conducting the séance, and … he’s causing things to materialize.”

Suddenly, nine threads materialized out of thin air.

“One for each of the nine people that are at this particular seance.”

“He’s channeling a spiritual force, and the spiritual force says, ‘we are nine, and you are nine, and you’re going to be instrumental in controlling the fate of this planet in the future.’”

“And in case anybody doesn’t believe me, Andrija Puharich … openly published the notes of this meeting and … everything that happened.”

Danny Jones: “A lot of it was recorded on audio, too.”

Levenda: “Yeah, you can download it.”

“The one main séance was this one about the Nine, and as it transpires … we understand from whoever’s channeling them that they’re actually in a saucer in low Earth orbit.”

“These are aliens of some kind.”


@JonesDanny


  

Air Force to paint Air Force One with new colors, scrapping classic Kennedy-era paint scheme

Air Force One will sport Trump’s preferred paint job, after Air Force again reverses course

Here's my suggestion:

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Greetings Rogue-Nation community!

As some may have already surmised, I, as among many, am a refugee from the late ATS and the soon-to-be (as of this writing) late DI.

When I first read TSK's decision, I thought I would simply go back to lurking here and there on the internet. Since then, I still feel that desire to discuss topics that fascinate me!

And so, here I am! Thank you for welcoming DI members. 

Now that this has been taken care of, I'll close this introduction with my interests which are mostly in topics about 'high strangeness' and consciousness. However, as far as I remember, I am not an experiencer myself, and I don't have any spiritual/religious/mystical background/education whatsoever, and hence, can only offer a somewhat uneducated opinion on those subjects.

Although I do have some experience with consciousness's 'altered' states and 'boundaries of the self', and thus I dare to hope to bring potentially interesting ideas.

In any case, I'm looking forward to future discussions with members here! 

Heh, just ran across "Project Anchor" on the 'net.  Seven point three seconds of floating fun.

First of all, welcome to Rogue Nation!

Uploading pictures here is easy but might be a bit confusing? Here's how to make your uploaded pics show full size and not just a thumbnail:

1. At the bottom of the post editor, drag a photo from your computer and drop it in the rectangular box. It (they) will automatically upload.
   
2. Ignore the option to add your picture to your post.
   
3. Preview your post. You will see a thumbnail at the bottom.
   
4. Click the thumbnail - it should open in a new tab
   
5. Copy the URL from the address bar in your browser of your photo
   
6. Back in the post editor, click the picture icon in the toolbar and paste in the URL
   

Hi.

Dunno if I was banned or not.

You know who I am, beezzer, DBCowboy.

Ami cool here or not?

Reform UK entered the British political arena with a bang 2 years ago when Nigel Farage resumed leadership of the party , buoyed by big promises and the hope of a population facing 5 years of Labour misrule Reform topped the polls last years as the reality of this government dawned on people.

Farage had support from those desperate for change and control of our borders , sadly his actions and those of his financier and right hand man Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf that support has been squandered , their treatment of Rupert Lowe and the spurious allegations made against him were a particular low point for many including myself , the inclusion of over 100 Conservative party members gives the impression that rather than being a party for the people Reform are just Tory party 2.0 , 14 years of failure continued under a different banner.

Step forward the aforementioned Rupert Lowe , after launching Restore Britain on Friday on a "for the people" ticket promising everything we wanted and in just 4 days over 60,000 people , including myself , have joined the party.

In a significant event today 7 Reform councillors from Kent County Council have resigned from the party and joined Restore Britain.

Quote:I am delighted to announce that seven Kent County Councillors have today joined Restore Britain, and they will form an official Restore Britain group on the council.

This is a very important day for our party.

There will be many more to come.

Had a weird one with the PCs.

Suddenly, the scan function for my Brother printer stopped working ... on more than one PC at my residence.  Could still print 

Had to reinstall the drivers for the Brother.  I -think- this was a side effect of a Windows update, but annoying.

Or maybe BIG Brother wants to record what I'm scanning