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Monday, February 2, 2026

Indoctrinating babies

 We need to talk about what teachers are doing to our very young children.

It’s bad enough that they groom them with all manner of adult sexual themes, but now they’re instructing them to make (sometimes vulgar) signs they can barely understand and then skip classes to go march with them in public!

These are kindergarteners in New York.  Kindergarteners!

It doesn’t say where this is, but having once lived in San Francisco, that looks like San Francisco.

This first grade teacher is in San Diego.

These grade schoolers have absolutely no idea what they are doing.  This is why we don’t let them vote.  The ability to think critically and to regulate their emotions isn’t yet mature.  This is why we don’t let them drive; that and not being able to reach the pedals!  Half of them probably still need a nightlight in their bedrooms.

Here we have middle schoolers. Many of these boys’ voices are still changing and many of the girls haven’t yet begun to menstruate.  If they are inclined to want to date, even at this tender age, their parents might well make them go in a group to an afternoon matinee instead of one-on-one to an evening movie. Many are still too young to babysit even for a younger sibling and they probably have a 9 P.M. bedtime.

These kids are way too young and they have no idea what they’re doing

And these are Portland middle-schoolers holding “F-ck ICE” and “F-ck Trump” signs.  Mind you, these are the same teachers who teach “trigger” words and become unhinged if you use one, but curse words?  They have their students sit down and print them out carefully on poster-board with which to go out and march in public.

Can you imagine if a local paper snaps their picture?  And the parents of one of these kids see their child holding a “F-ck” sign?  I’d be apoplectic.

This… thing… is proud of his students for skipping school to protest.  I’m old enough to remember when teachers frowned on kids skipping school.

This lady teaches in a high school where civics should be discussed, but we all know they don’t “discuss” they indoctrinate.  What’s notable here is her admission that this is being organized from the very top.

“Our bosses are in the Signal chats with us. Our elected officials are in the chats.”

It’s one thing to have state-sponsored domestic propaganda.  It’s entirely another to enlist children in the cause. They’re not old enough to have an informed opinion.  Kids in school shouldn’t be taking sides, unless their teacher assigns sides in a classroom for a class debate — presumably one done honestly.  Other than that, politics has no place in taxpayer funded schools.  None.  Picking a side and having a kid make and hold a sign, especially an obscene one (!), is completely unacceptable.  One can only hope there are enough sane parents in these school districts to raise a fuss and stop this nonsense!

As this poster said on X:  “If you are a teacher and your students know how you vote, you have stopped being an educator and have become an indoctrinator.”

M. Walter blogs at www.mwalterwriter.com

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/02/indoctrinating_babies.html

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Are Fraud And Waste Embedded In Washington State’s Health Care Authority?

I have sources who would be very helpful to federal investigators in investigating fraud within the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA). Washington is a blue state, and both Governor Ferguson and AG Brown are taunting the Trump Administration, like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Washington would be a good test case for the administration, because the same type of fraud is seen in other blue states. (Minnesota currently garners most of the headlines.)

Based on my investigative experience, all the blue states are using similar schemes to defraud the federal government. The common denominator is a lack of accountability and of proactive system protocols to prevent fraud at both the state and federal levels. I have some suggestions later in this article on how the federal government can expedite these cases before the cows come home. These suggestions are not rocket science.

Washington State is attracting the DOJ’s attention, especially Assistant US Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. AAG Dhillon has sued 23 states and the District of Columbia for withholding certain voter registration information. Washington was included in this number, as were 21 other blue states...and Georgia. The alleged HHS frauds are intertwined with election fraud and immigration enforcement issues. What are these states hiding?

My Washington sources were involved with a significant upgrade to the VA medical records system. The $33-billion upgrade was a boondoggle from the beginning, and it still hasn’t been fully deployed. My sources told me of incidents that I believed constituted the fraudulent theft of federal funds in ways that veteran deaths. So far, I’m unaware of anything having been done with the information.

My sources are now working with the Washington HCA on various healthcare programs that require reporting to HHS. Again, they have first-hand knowledge of alleged fraud. For example, federal funds were diverted to services that HHS didn’t authorize, as when administrative salaries were padded in HHS reports with funds diverted elsewhere. The sources have internal documents that may reveal the administration’s specific intent to divert federal funds. So far, I haven’t been able to pass this information along to the federal investigators.

Governor Ferguson is continuing to fund illegal aliens and other liberal programs without pushback. He signed off on the most significant tax increase in state history, including a new law imposing a sales tax approaching 10% on professional services (here) and other tax hikes. The new revenue will be added to the state’s operating budget. Another new payroll tax is already being proposed for January 2026 in the next legislative session.

My sources indicate that these tax increases are intended to fill the budget gap caused by the loss of federal funding. With the new tax revenue going into the general fund, it is easy to divert funds to cover programs for illegal aliens. Further, there are discussions about how to pass these new sales taxes through to HHS as a reimbursable expense. Washington is stiffing the taxpayers yet again.

As most news consumers know, the DOJ is currently investigating alleged HHS fraud in Minnesota. These types of crimes would be significantly aided by insider information to develop probable cause for criminal search warrants, rather than playing the subpoena game. My sources in Washington can provide information that would expedite the exposure of alleged fraudulent HHS diversion of funds for illegal purposes. This fraud is a target-rich environment.

The feds are asking Minnesota employees for tips. My experience with federal tip lines has not been good in the past when calling in my official capacity (but those are stories for another time). In the past, tip calls would generate index cards by the thousands that traveled like snail mail, or, if in digital form, were not well triaged. Tip lines in the federal government are slow! I speculate that this stems from stove-piping between agencies and bureaucratic inertia.

I coined the term “Mission Focused Strategic Communications” many years ago as a subset of the “spontaneous order“ that emerges in emergencies—9/11 or Katrina—to describe how people begin to share actionable information without delay to those who can act immediately. For example, the FBI field offices had information regarding the flight training of the 9/11 terrorists.

However, proactive individuals trying to accomplish tasks were stymied by the FBI’s hierarchical, stove-piped structure, which prevented them from passing information to those who could act quickly. A successful strike is a failure. There is no one left to prosecute. The military has a similar concept of the OODA loop. In simple terms, get inside the enemy’s decision-making cycle to exploit it before the enemy can react. You’re dead if the enemy gets inside your loop first.

Here are a few suggestions for expediting these investigations:

One. Elon Musk is a creative innovator who gets it, gets things done, and has witnessed first-hand the massive fraud at USAID and the bureaucratic inertia to stop it. He could aid in the criminal investigation/prosecution of those robbing taxpayers in broad daylight, as we all want.

Musk could help build tip portals powered by AI that can quickly triage tips—routing them to strike teams comprised of FBI, HHS, IRS, and FinCEN agents with forensic support, who can immediately respond to put hides on the wall. To his credit, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent gets it, but it’s hard to turn the bureaucratic aircraft carrier on a dime. The taxpayers want accountability quickly and are not seeing any apparent action.

Two. I’m not being dismissive of the investigators who are inundated with piles of paperwork. To make their work productive, the government must cut the bureaucratic crap so investigators can chase crooks instead of being burned out with collecting the beans.

Case in point, the SSI auditors were on my tail for a $2 payout on what was a worthless share of stock that my disabled son received from his grandma. It took me two months to get the auditor off my back. The ROI for the resources used on this bean was not worth the effort.

Three. For heaven’s sake, use off-the-shelf GIS programs (ESRI) to cross-check voting rolls and ghost businesses. Doing so will expose instances where 30 voters registered, or where childcare businesses are located, at the same porta-potty as Nick Shirley did in Minnesota.

Four. Lastly, “Follow the money, Honey!” to ensnare those directing these operations.

Yes, I’m being vicious, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Marxists led an insurgency in the streets of Minneapolis, likely aided by Governor Tim Walz, AG Keith Ellison, and Mayor Jacob Frey. They are deflecting attention away from the massive fraud to conceal their likely culpability. It is a war between ideologies - a free society and a repressive totalitarian one that seeks to destroy our culture as we know it.

Please share this email address with anyone who can help: ron@americanthinker.com.

Ron Wright is a retired detective who served 35 years with Riverside P.D., Calif. Ron earned a B.A. in political science from Cal State University, Fullerton, and a Master of Administration from the University of California, Riverside. X @RonTcop


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Central Banking Made Real Simple

I got a bit of a shock on Friday, when my gold ETF went down by 10 percent. It happened to be the day that President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Actually, if you look at gold prices, they started down the day before when, presumably, the folks in the know and Somali insiders in Minnesota started to sell.

Could it be that Kevin Warsh will stop the century-long dollar inflation, where the dollar has lost about 99 percent of its value through a couple of world wars and three or four credit crises?

Kevin Warsh, if you check his Wikipedia page, is not a fan of wall-to-wall “quantitative easing” or QE. As a member of the Federal Reserve Board in 2008 he backed QE to get out of the spiral dive, but opposed “QE2” when the Fed implemented it in November 2010.

Warsh told his colleagues that he would only vote for QE2 out of respect for Chairman Bernanke: "If I were in your chair, I would not be leading the Committee in this direction, and frankly, if I were in the chair of most people around this room, I would dissent."

After a decent interval, Kevin Warsh resigned from the Federal Reserve Board in February 2011.

If you want to know what QE2 did for the world, I made over 400% in the 15 years between 2010 and 2025 just sitting on SPY and QQQ.

You Gen Xers and Millennials and Gen Zers: pay no attention to that Boomer behind the curtain!

How do we make this tale of inflation and deficits and quantitative easing Real Simple just like Sen. Iselin wanted?

It’s like this: crashes and crises occur when borrowers can’t pay their debts.

In 1929 ordinary people were buying stocks with mostly borrowed money. Then the stock market tanked and they couldn’t pay back their loans and 5,000 banks failed. In 2008, after a decade of low-down mortgage loans, lots of people defaulted on their mortgages. Result: end of the world. Almost.

In venture capital land it’s different: you understand that the startup will probably fail. If the startup turns into an Amazon or a Google, everybody buys superyachts. But if it fails, better luck next time.

That’s it. Debts must be repaid; equity not so much.

Right now, I am reading, a lot of the AI guys are borrowing money to build out their mega-server farms.

Hello Houston! We Have a Problem! What happens if 75 percent of the AI firms go broke when the AI bubble bursts sometime in the next decade? Suppose those eeevil AI billionaires default on their loans?

Sen. Warren! Are you paying attention?

Now I am reading a history of the last five technological revolutions and their booms and busts: Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez. At some point, Perez writes, people get overexcited and everyone piles into the New Thing just before the bubble bursts.

I predict the next credit crisis will come when all the billionaires default on their server farm loans.

In the aftermath of the usual crash, Perez tells us, governments and regulators and economists and experts get together to write new regulations so it never happens again. Not. Because governments and regulators and economists and experts don’t have a clue about the financial system. Maybe central banker Kevin Marsh will be different.

Here’s how I understand central banking. Back in 1609 the Dutch invented central banking with the Amsterdam Exchange Bank, and used the bank to win their war of independence against the Spanish. That’s what central banks are for: they print money to finance world wars.

Then the Dutch invaded Britland in 1688 and set up the Bank of England in 1692. It worked so well that the Brits won the Second Hundred Years War in 1815 at Waterloo a day or so after the Duchess of Richmond’s fabulous Ball in Brussels.

The other thing that central banks do is act as “lender of last resort” in a credit crisis. Sir Francis Baring invented the concept in 1797.

In the U.S. we won our Independence without a central bank, but Alexander Hamiliton set up the Bank of the United States to buy all the worthless debt issued by the states in the War of Independence, and lots of people made a ton of money.

But not everyone likes the idea of a central bank, and it took a university president to persuade the U.S. to do central banking again in 1913 just in time to finance two world wars and a cold war and the welfare state. On the way the Fed botched the 1929 credit crisis and almost botched the 2008 credit crisis.

I am confident that central banker Kevin Warsh will make central banking Real Simple.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/02/central_banking_made_real_simple.html

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Nurses, Heal Thyself: Trump Derangement Syndrome Enters the Hospital

 Physician, heal thyself!” Jesus said to those gathered in the synagogue at Nazareth.

The admonition was aimed at hypocrisy and moral blindness — a warning that those who presume authority must first examine their own conduct.

Today, someone needs to repeat those words to health care professionals who have allowed Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) to corrode their ethics and professionalism.

That warning applies just as much to nursing as it does to medicine.

Nursing emerged as a modern profession in the mid-19th century under the leadership of Florence Nightingale. In 1893, the Nightingale Pledge codified the profession’s moral foundation, committing nurses to “devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care” and to “do no harm.” Compassion, neutrality, and duty were not optional — they were the profession’s reason for being.

The American Nursing Association Code of Ethics requires, “The nurse’s primary commitment is to the patient, whether an individual, family, group, community, or population.” I presume groups include Republicans, Trump supporters, and ICE agents. 

Medicine, with nursing as one of its pillars, exists to heal the sick and comfort the vulnerable. While some may be drawn to health care for technical challenges, flexible schedules, or job security, the vast majority of nurses enter the profession with sincere intentions to help others. That shared moral commitment is what allows patients to trust those caring for them during moments of fear, pain, and helplessness.

Which makes the following question unavoidable: Why are some nurses now publicly calling for the torture, abuse, and death of people whose political views they dislike?

As a surgeon, I can state unequivocally that political affiliation does not alter human anatomy, physiology, or disease. Blood vessels do not constrict based on voting history. Tumors do not grow faster in conservatives. Gravity, bullets, and blunt trauma are blissfully indifferent to ideology. Health care professionals are expected to be the same -- delivering the best possible care regardless of race, religion, class, or politics.

Yet Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached pandemic levels among a militant and increasingly visible cadre of health care professionals, infecting even those entrusted with others’ lives. Increasingly, a vocal minority of nurses and other health care workers - individuals granted extraordinary access and authority -- openly fantasize about harming political opponents. This is not merely unprofessional behavior. It is a profound ethical failure.

Consider the case of a nurse at Virginia Commonwealth University Health who was fired after posting TikTok videos suggesting ways to harm ICE agents. This was not abstract rhetoric. She proposed injecting agents with succinylcholine, a neuromuscular blocking agent that causes complete muscle paralysis, including of the respiratory muscles. Without ventilatory support, the result is death. The drug has long been described as an “ideal murder weapon” precisely because it leaves little external evidence.

A trained nurse would understand this. Which makes her suggestion all the more chilling. This was not ignorance. It was medically informed malice.

The nurse also suggested filling water guns with poison ivy or poison oak extract to spray into agents’ faces. If that proved ineffective, another nurse recommended that single female nurses use dating apps to lure ICE agents out for drinks, spike those drinks with laxatives, and incapacitate them. Nurse Ratched, reporting for duty. 

This nurse likely entered the profession with altruistic intentions. But the TDS mind virus transformed her from caregiver to would-be executioner -- all while basking in the applause and clicks of social media.

These nurses are not alone.

An Ohio nurse publicly wished that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt would suffer a fourth-degree perineal tear while delivering her second child. Such an injury involves tearing through the vaginal wall, anal sphincter, and into the rectum -- requiring surgical repair and risking lifelong fecal incontinence and sexual dysfunction. This is not casual cruelty. It is grotesque medical sadism.

A Florida nurse echoed the sentiment in even more graphic terms, writing online: “I hope you f*cking rip from bow to stern and never sh*t normally again, you c*nt.” This is the language of hatred, not healing. Yet it came from someone entrusted with patient care and human well-being.

Not surprisingly, her Florida nursing license was promptly revoked.

If a family member of mine were hospitalized, these are precisely the nurses I would hope not to encounter.

Then there is Erik Martindale, a Florida nurse anesthetist, who publicly declared that he would not provide anesthesia for “MAGA” patients, claiming it was his “ethical oath” to do so. He later suggested his account had been “hacked,” a defense now as familiar as it is unconvincing. 

Would Mr. Martindale allow a conservative patient to awaken during surgery -- a rare but devastating complication -- and consider it justified? Would pain control become a political privilege? Once ideology dictates care, there is no logical stopping point. History offers grim reminders of where that road leads.

Defenders of such conduct often invoke “free speech.” But health care is not a college quad or faculty lounge. The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics explicitly requires compassion and respect for every patient, regardless of “social or political status.” Political discrimination is not protected expression within the profession. It is an ethical violation.

We saw a preview of this moral decay during COVID. Remember the TikTok nurses dancing in hospital corridors, turning intensive care units into makeshift discos? I understand the stress health care workers endured during the early pandemic. Blowing off steam is human.

But broadcasting choreographed routines to millions, while families were barred from visiting dying loved ones, signaled something deeply wrong. I was one of those family members. Watching nurses dance for clicks while patients died alone was neither comforting nor inspiring. It was alienating.

In 2018, a Georgia dermatologist lost her medical license after filming and social media posting herself singing and dancing over sedated patients during surgery. Was that performance meant to prepare her for operating or to monetize social media attention? The line between professionalism and narcissism had already been crossed.

Health care is not activism. A hospital is not a protest rally. A patient is not a political avatar.

The moment a nurse or physician begins sorting patients into deserving and undeserving categories based on ideology, the profession ceases to be one of healing and becomes something far more dangerous. History offers grim reminders of what happens when medicine is subordinated to political belief rather than ethical duty.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is not merely a cultural punchline. In health care, it manifests as moral corrosion. It replaces compassion with contempt, restraint with rage, and professionalism with performative cruelty. It convinces otherwise decent people that harming others is virtuous so long as the target is politically acceptable.

Patients do not arrive at hospitals as Republicans or Democrats. They come frightened, vulnerable, and often powerless. They must trust that those caring for them will place duty above ideology. Once that trust is broken, the entire system rots from within.

“Physician, heal thyself” was not simply a rebuke. It was a warning. If health care professionals cannot diagnose their own moral sickness, they risk becoming the very thing they once swore to oppose. Nurses and doctors must decide whether their highest allegiance is to politics, or to the sacred obligation they voluntarily assumed.

There can be no coexistence between political hatred and medical ethics. One of them must give way.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer.  Follow me on X @retinaldoctor, Substack Dr. Brian’s Substack, Truth Social @BrianJoondeph, LinkedIn @Brian Joondeph, and email brianjoondeph@gmail.com.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/02/nurses_heal_thyself_trump_derangement_syndrome_enters_the_hospital.html

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Roche's return to RNA continues with $1.7B deal for Sanegene

 Roche is continuing its return to the RNA space by paying $200 million for the worldwide license to one of SanegeneBio’s programs.

The companies didn’t specify which indication the program is focused on, only disclosing that it is derived from Sanegene’s RNAi platform. The Boston-based biotech will be responsible for early development activities before Roche’s Genentech unit takes over for clinical development and commercialization activities.

In return, Sanegene will receive the $200 million upfront payment and could be in line for up to $1.5 billion in development and commercialization milestone payments as well as tiered royalties on sales.

“Entering into this agreement with Genentech marks another important milestone for our innovative and differentiated RNAi chemistry and delivery platforms,” Sanegene CEO Weimin Wang, Ph.D., said in the Feb. 2 release. “We are delighted to work with a global scientific leader to continue delivering effective and life-changing therapies for patients worldwide.”

Sanegene—which, as well as in Boston, has R&D outposts in Shanghai and Suzhou, China—is already working on a clutch of its own metabolic-focused RNA meds, headed up by a clinical-stage angiotensinogen-targeting siRNA for which China’s Innovent has scooped up the Asia rights.

The biotech has also attracted other Big Pharma interest in recent months, with Eli Lilly penning a $1.2 billion biobucks deal in November to help pinpoint cardiometabolic RNAi medicines at the correct tissues.

Roche is no stranger to RNA meds, having pulled back from its R&D work in the space as long ago as 2010. But, four years later, the company acquired RNA-focused Santaris Pharma in a $450 million deal.

More recently, the Swiss pharma secured the ex-U.S. rights to zilebesiran, Alnylam’s subcutaneously administered RNAi therapeutic that targets liver-expressed angiotensinogen, and has taken the hypertension drug into phase 3 development despite some dubious data.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/roches-return-rna-continues-17b-deal-sanegene-program

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DaVita jumps on quarterly beats, 2026 guidance

 DaVita Inc. (DVA) released a profit for fourth quarter of $234.21 million

The company's earnings totaled $234.21 million, or $3.29 per share. This compares with $259.32 million, or $3.09 per share, last year.

Excluding items, DaVita Inc. reported adjusted earnings of $3.40 per share for the period.

The company's revenue for the period rose 9.7% to $3.61 billion from $3.29 billion last year.

DaVita Inc. earnings at a glance (GAAP) :

-Earnings: $234.21 Mln. vs. $259.32 Mln. last year. -EPS: $3.29 vs. $3.09 last year. -Revenue: $3.61 Bln vs. $3.29 Bln last year.

Full yr guidance $13.60 TO $15.00

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/davita-inc-q4-sales-increase

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"F**k ICE!": Awards Season Exposes 'Spoiled, Entitled, Reality-Denying Tyrants'

 by James Howard Kunstler,

The political grandstanding started way back in 1973 when the irascible Marlon Brando stayed home from the Academy Awards but sent an Apache princess, one Sacheen Littlefeather, to the podium to decline his award (Best Actor for The Godfather) on account of the 71-day standoff at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota between federal agents and Oglala Lakota activists who had seized the little town of Wounded Knee.

After that, political “statements” at awards ceremonies of all kinds became modish, then obligatory, and now in the age of Lefty-left Woke Jacobin activism, all you get is one denunciation after another of the monster who lives in their heads: ChrumpChrumpChrump. Cue the audience of fellow “stars” for the also obligatory standing-O, which is really a test to see if any among them dare not join in the hosannahs — so they can be anathemized.

You are seeing sheer ritual performance by performers, the highest perq of stardom being the approbation of their peers, fellow performers — nevermind the lowly gorks out in Flyover Land who “consume” the products of pop culture. This is cliché narcissism-on-parade, of course, and is now so completely institutionalized in the pop culture industries that seemingly all actors, musicians, dancers, mimes, comics, and literary figures must act-out an activist fantasy or face the pretty extreme punishment of being run out of their business.

It’s all fake and pathetic, and the more they do it, the more their various culture industries suffer — to the point now that feature production in Hollywood was down over 16-percent in 2025. It’s dying in a self-reinforcing doom-loop. The reason is no secret, but it is dangerous to speak of it: the management of our “sense-making” institutions — movies being an important one — has been taken over by women (and womanish men) acting out Cluster-B psychodrama fantasies obsessively attacking “the patriarchy” — by which they mean (but cannot say) civilization itself, the thing sedulously built by men.

The latest wrinkle in this tragic saga is the psychodrama over ICE, the men tasked with finding and deporting people who came into the country illegally. The Cluster-B women mis-direct their nurturing instincts to rescue this politically-designated “oppressed minority,” overlooking the fact that not a few of these illegal aliens turn out to be murderous psychopaths. Conveniently, too, the illegal aliens also happen to be a very useful device for the Democratic Party to pad the census and provide illicit votes, all to keep the party in power and sustain its rackets.

President Trump completes the doom-loop circle because he is the mythic figure who prompts all the anxiety behind the “mass formation” phenomenon we are witnessing. Mr. Trump is patriarchy-in-action, so he must be destroyed by the goddess-heroines of show business. The goddess-heroines seem to believe they are ushering-in a Utopia of Nurture in which no oppressed minority will be left behind. That fantasy happens to intersect with the leveling fantasies of Karl Marx and his apostles, the mentors of the obscenely-rich denizens of Hollywood so eager to abolish obscene riches. So, you see how either stupid, or mentally-ill, or both, the people in show business can be.

Last night’s awards extravaganza was the Grammys, for music.

The anti-ICE ritual flared in full effulgence with Song of the Year winner Billie Eilish - costumed not to look as a woman but rather like a piece of luggage - bathed in applause for heroically muttering, “Fuck ICE,” after picking up her little golden gramophone statuette. Perfect.

Few musicians can make a dime anymore, and a very few of those few make billions while the rest starve. The record album was the supreme art-form of my generation, and it is long gone. Record labels don’t continue to exist when there are no records. Musical acts don’t get contracts and don’t get paid. Nobody listens to FM radio anymore and so nobody is introduced to new musical talent. Live music on the small club scale is dying because the drinks cost too much. Does anyone still have a quaint old home stereo, a gigantic wall-of-sound, with four-foot-high speakers? All I’ve got is a seven-inch Bluetooth speaker.

The lively arts are dying and the remaining lively artists are assisting with the suicide.

Not far in the future, the motion picture might be a dead letter. Technology marches on.

Immersion in human experience depicted on a silver screen, using the techniques of dramaturgy, will be supplanted, we’re told, by video games that put you immersively into “a world” where a story is spinning that you can now act-out a role in.

You might see how that would entice an awful lot of people to check-out of reality altogether — and if that happens, you might well ask: who is left to run civilization?

The answer you get will be: artificial intelligence, AI. Oh, great.

But then, is it running civilization for all those pathetic people losing themselves in immersive video games? Or just for AI itself? And where does that take the human race?

Personally, I don’t expect it to work out that way. If I were disposed to investing money in the entertainment business, I’d build a theater for puppet shows.

That’s the level our civilization-destroying antics are taking us to, with the Democratic Party leading the way.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/awards-season-exposes-spoiled-entitled-reality-denying-tyrants

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