"America Has Lost the Plot", Disability Inflation, A "Far Right" EU?, British Liberals' American Turn, Rammstein as Emblematic of "Germany's Right Wing Shift"
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Three new interviews in the works, plus a couple of essays. Bear with me!
It is obvious that the Establishment is conducting a witch hunt with respect to Trump. Nobody bothers to hide it anymore. What does Trump propose to do about it?
The same question can be laid at just about everything else in this essay. Yes, the West is ruled by totalitarians and raging hypocrites. Sociopaths. So, what are you going to do about it?
Compare the Western peoples with the Ukrainians and Russians in the Donbass who resisted the junta in Kiev. Expect nothing and you will not be disappointed.
Exactly. It is disappointing but this how it has always been. I feel ashamed and humiliated that I ever believed in the system (and served it for a while), but I was young and very naive. The worst, most degrading, servitude involves a voluntary surrender to enchantment and lies. Things will change in the West, but it will be a slow and bitter process. But, from a long-term perspective, this may be necessary. History has its seasons and things are getting a bit chilly now. We will all just have to make the best of it. But there is no point in despair. Bad as it is, things are a total joke compared to what people have gone through in the past.
At age 72 I can give full rein to my pessimism "What are you/we/they going to do about it?" "Nothing much" is the answer. Thanks to decades of vastly expanded tertiary' education (in the 95% lefty groupthink academy) millions of middle class people in the professional/managerial classes are (politically-speaking ) now full of groupthink shit. So how does Western civilisation 'recover' from this? It doesn't. Liberal individualism was great while it lasted. But it carried the seeds of its own demise (a tendency to narcissism, social fragmentation etc etc) and now its day is done. All civilisations eventually fail; this is how ours does. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
Kirn also has a book about being friends with a guy who turned out to be a massive con artist and murderer. It was the "Clark Rockefeller" impersonator, who turned out to be a German national who had come to the USA decades before as an exchange student.
Relatedly a family friend once met the fake Rockefeller and smelled a rat in a few seconds.
“He came to town for the Republican National Convention and will stay until the election in November TO DO GOD'S BIDDING: To tell the World, from Kansas City, this country has been found wanting and its days are numbered [...] He gestured toward a gleaming church dome. “The gold dome is the symbol of BABYLON,” he said.” [...] He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention an “idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a War with Russia.”
That 1976 FUTURE is NOW with the Revelation of the details GENERALLY unfolding in the spirit of the letter.
The World is waking up to see Americans may hasten “its days are numbered” part of the 1976 Vision, and waits with bated breath.
With the benefit of 47 years hindsight, the last 8 years of intensified FBI, Military, Intelligence and Think Tank “experts” on TV constantly, unanimously, demonizing Putin and Russia, with no dissent allowed, the People have been prepared.
The Times did a followup on ALL SOULS DAY, November 2, 1976.
Great post - idk about that Rammstein essay, their last tour featured a giant baby that spat out CGI flies, lots of explosions, and the synth player performing the whole show on a crazy gyroscopic/rotating treadmill. Not sure how that reinforced extreme right wing ideology.
Rammstein is very, very influenced by Laibach from Slovenia. They are very tongue-in-cheek with their lyrics and visual displays, playing with totalitarian symbols and the like.
They went after him for questioning the official Ukraine narrative. The insidious thing about wokeness and political correctness more generally is that it is weaponized against people who hold the wrong view on something that can't yet be turned into a cancelable offense - questioning/criticizing he government. The more things that can't be said, the more vulnerabilities that exist by which to selectively silence people for things that can still be said.
They did that to CJ Hopkins too for his ruthless criticism of German pandemic policy.
I just read today about the reception to the 1954 BBC adaptation of 1984 (with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith!). It was not well-received by the critics, with much hand-wringing about sex & violence, but clearly a deep undercurrent of discomfort with the black mirror held up to post-war Britain.
Trump's treatment at the hands of the regime is a test to see how docile the population are.
The US tolerated transparent electoral fraud in 2020 with barely a peep. The authorities in 26 states meekly accepted the dismissal of their suit for relief from fraud on procedural grounds. Since then reaction to Jan 6 has been escalating. There has also been response from Republicans over the case of Douglas Mackey.
One can only assume that the regime is emboldened by the passivity of its opponents and will continue to tighten the screws so as to deter any resistance over the next round of election fraud.
In a way dovetails with the Q stuff which appears to be/have been a psyop to encourage passivity by reference to mysterious internal forces handling things (possibly modeled on Bolshevik Operation Trust) although who really knows
In hindsight it is evident that QAnon was a psyop and the underlying logic follows Operation Trust perfectly. That the regime has to rely on such things demonstrates the collapse of support and the unreliability of the old processes of legitimation. There is no way back. The only way forward is to deploy new psyops supplemented with force.
In the near term it appears that Niccolo is correct that a Trump victory is essential for push back on the totalitarian left particularly in the context of the radical climate scientism which is being proposed - in a Biden second term this can easily be used to dismantle much of what is left of the middle class (indirect and direct travel restrictions, farm closures, exponential costs of living increases, etc) and thus the primary impediment to a sort of neo-feudalism. However, the left still would retain control of all permanent institutions of relevance in the event of a Trump victory. Query whether he has the patience and judgment to even begin to engineer a long term reversal if this is even possible.
Trump/Biden is not the big picture. The future will be settled by productivity, the structure of the economy, global financial flows and trends in family life.
If elected Trump is likely to face the mother of all Colour Revolutions. At very best he salvages the system for a decade but this is unlikely. The US has lost the war in Ukraine and has restarted the Cold War from a position of profound weakness at home and abroad. .
So called neo-feudalism inevitable. Post petrodollar will see the US plunged into a condition much like the Great Depression but without functioning or credible institutions and a divided population poised for civil conflict.
If Newsom is elected (Biden is not viable) the Great Reset continues as planned.
Actually I think Biden is the last President as we have known it..
In America the PTB system don’t have the force, they have inertia and lack of alternatives.
The alternatives will have to be a ah sorting mechanism similar to post Qing dynasty China 1911-1949 (time frame unknown).
Philip you recall a year ago I pointed out Ukraine war was being used to secure the Atlantic 🇺🇸 Empire around the core, but they also needed options and the Strategic depth of Europe as a hedge against loss of territory- I mean from 🇺🇸 side not Russia.
This is why Empires have overseas or foreign lands- Strategic Depth. This saved France and England in both World Wars (DeGaulle started North in Chad, and most of his fight wasn’t against Germany but DC, read his memoirs).
That we decided to trash Germany to get our industry back is a calculated risk to shore up 🇺🇸 CONUS core against risking core periphery.
Trump won’t be POTUS again- just disruption. Nor RFK, Democracy has been fortified since 2018. Trump was too busy listening to Son in Law to pay attention.
Its October 2020 before he even puts anything about the Civil Service being subject to dismissal, the worst possible timing.
He still barely gets it; amazed he was arrested, he’s lucky he’s alive. This is Empire, if he was facing Men - he isn’t and wasn’t- he’d have been dead.
As the Republic 🗽 died, America 🇺🇸 asked her: who shall rule us?
And she rattled: The Strongest.
-----------
People who believe in elections are keeping Mothers corpse in the Fruit cellar, talking to her as if she were alive, taking her up to watch FOX news...
re: disability and incentives, I remember seeing an article a while back that noticed how reports of things like chronic back pain vary from country to country in a way that tracks how generous disability payouts are. The more you incentivize disability, the more you'll get, just like with anything else.
On more than one occasion I've had students in college tell me about the generous accommodations they have due to their highly-questionable "ADHD" or whatever. When I ask whether the elephantine quantity of recreational drugs they're using might also be impairing their concentration, they react indignantly as if having the accommodation is their right. Not to vilify the students too much, they're responding to incentives and the world we've made for them after all.
"why not take advantage of what is being presented to us?"— that seems like an attitude you would expect to see in a society that is either in the grips of disastrous poverty with every man for himself; a totalitarian society with no trust; or a more decadent society that wants to consume whatever they can before their time runs out.
seems like an attitude you would expect to see in a society that is either in the grips of disastrous poverty with every man for himself
That’s the USA now: either you climb the greasy pole anyway you can or live in poverty. Neoliberalism, privatization, and deindustrialization created the precarity and poverty these students are trying to avoid.
They see the “gig” workers scraping coins together to barely stay housed and fed; and the 100,000,000 working age adults that don’t have regular jobs.
There are no moral values displayed among our “leaders” who mouth false pieties while funneling wealth to the richest 1% decade after decade.
The leadership being scumbags - many elected of course- does not excuse scumbag behavior, nor will it avail them - those of lesser means will find them diminished when it’s found they are untrustworthy and have nothing to offer but lies.
Oliver Twist. Re history, the US is getting into the reenactment of the post-Napoleonic era in Europe...hardship, repression and accelerated development. The EU will just get the hardship and repression.
Recent forays into history are forcing me to admit my worst fear for America, one I’ve long been avoiding facing; we are Carthage, or more accurately governed at the top by Carthage.
America itself is a decent and prosperous and productive land with very generous and fair people but has always been dominated at the top by greedy and cowardly fools with some exceptions. DC was always this way, Philadelphia before DC. After the Founders went to war , or Europe or to their home states the following Revolutionary war Congresses treated Washington and the Army as the Carthaginian Republic treated the Barcas, only the soldiers valor, Washington and the French saved the cause.
In the times since the nation was saved in wars by a Supreme Commander who marshaled the nation- Lincoln, Wilson, FDR.*
Other than that the military has always been more feared than any enemy, as indeed the people of America are now... ruled by selfish, mediocre cowards put in to safeguard mercantile and moneyed interests (the Southern interests leading to the Civil war no different except they lost, they would have made a plantation of the entire country black and sharecropper whites, quite known at the time).
* Desert Storm, the sole victory since 1945 DC was rallied by ... Bandar Al Sultan and Kuwaiti, Saudi money. Not Bush 41.
After the Civil War President Grant and General of the Army Sherman attempted to reform the War Department so the line Army would be properly supplied, they were frustrated and failed.
After FDR for all the blather about MIC the real game is the President’s loss of power to DOD and the rest; the CIA by statute is an Independent Agency, and has always behaved accordingly, every President since Truman ruined by war, some ruined by peace. The issue is DC prefers no one have the power if any of them have to give up a sliver, moreover they are puppets of money and interests, and neither money nor interests knows anything of war, statecraft or the good of the nation; this Doomed Carthage and Dooms our Empire.
The only thing we 🇺🇸 need to concern ourselves with is the nation and the people’s survival.
Carthage on my mind too. The Romans absorbed Carthage as much as they conquered it. The Roman state religion was essentially just magical rites for success in war and the key rite involved inviting the god of a hostile country to abandon his followers and defect to Rome. During the middle of the Punic Wars Rome paid attention to the tutelary god of Carthage..Ba'al-Hammon (aka Moloch in OT) whom they identified with Saturn. To tempt the god to Rome they did the usual (sacrifice a male and female slave of appropriate ethnicity) and added a twist. They reformed the previously established rites of Saturn and established gladiatorial games (previously only held in South italy as funerary rites) as a mass spectacle and a regular part of the Saturnalia. It was an oblique way of normalising himan sacrifice. After that the entertainment industry did the rest and the Romans became besotted with human sacrifice as a form of entertainment. The cult of Saturn thrived for centuries to come across the empire.
All this gels with Rene Girard's theories about mimetic exchange. The US rivalry with various parties appears to have resulted in the unacknowledged.incorporation of Soviet and other ideologies and practices.
Increasingly in two minds on petrodollar. A period of serious austerity is inevitable but a true socio-economic collapse is unlikely. My guess is that the US will just default on its debt and the empire restructures itself.
Philip for years I’ve noticed every American political arrangement is a Federation from the Iroquois to now including the Internet which proves the point (the Structure of the Internet is Federation of Federations, network of networks a tad misleading, see BGP4 and IETF). Every overreach including the Iroquois Confederation led to collapse as the reach exceeded grasp - see The Crown 1765-1775, and so on.
I’ve been reading Francis Jennings on the Iroquois Covenant Chain (The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire- you’d find it fascinating) and am struck by the similarities to NATO including the ambiguous Article 5.
And my still gelling thesis and my point; the rich yet resource diverse lands and always diverse people of North America combined with matchless, easily traversable and navigable internal geography and matchless external geographic advantages COMPEL irresistibly Federation and always frustrate Empire. What this means is;
*The Inescapable Federation of America means there can’t be central control, which means any Empire is absurd. *
1. Its NOT a Republic or Empire, its a FEDERATION and GEOGRAPHY doesn’t negotiate.
2. Regardless of the Top level of government internally America will always be Federated.
3. 🇺🇸 somewhat founded as Thalassocracy and mercantile Republic was 241 years ago when that was true and the interior now so rich and developed and vast changed our economy; most of our commerce internal. America’s Crown Jewels our internal markets, facing Doom we’ve reclaimed industry at last.
4. You cannot have Empire externally if you don’t have internally, you must be Master of your own lands.
5. The present Masters are no such thing-
6. Even if they were conquerors , the greatest ever, they could never consolidate and hold without destroying most of the economy to centralize it around one sector they could control- this appears to have just been tried unconsciously with Finance and failed-
7. This 🇺🇸 Empire cannot last. This isn’t a logical contradiction (logic can make anything, it made Lenin) this is attempting to contradict GEOGRAPHY and self interest, greed. It goes against the interests of all concerned and the very land they stand on.
8. Not that they can’t dream of automated everything, endless fiat money , live in pods, eat the bugs...but it’s Delusional.
9. It now comes into focus that China wasn’t entirely wrong to burn the fleet, China is enough work for Chinese rulers.
10. And America is plenty enough for ours and ourselves, in any case we can’t extend either...
*The Inescapable Federation of America means there can’t be central control, which means any Empire is absurd. *
Many of them don't even take advantage of the accomodations unless absolutely necessary, when they're struggling with an assignment or class. That gives the game away. It's true they are responding to incentives, created by the universities, but they also aren't curious about material anymore and that's on them
Previously "hard" majors are also adopting what happened to the social sciences and humanities, namely making it near impossible to get below a C if you just do the homework and don't go missing for a month from class. It's again a combo of some professors wanting to "democratize" education, and other professors being forced to do so to avoid failing everyone and be hated/reprimanded
These kids also basically refuse to open up textbooks these days and professors assign them less than ever. I get it with the notorious cost factor for students, but again: degradation. It's also true in humanities that fewer books are assigned every year and it's not expensive to get copies of the classics in that case
They also won't Google despite abundant resources being free there. The professors have to provide everything in the Powerpoints or else the course gets negative reviews
speed does make one a better student, as we knew back in the '60s & '70s. Getting the administration to endorse prescribing it is some kind of backdoor acknowledgement of same.
One thing that keeps bugging me with the supposed "rightward shift" happening, is that the term "right wing" is vague, borderline meaningless. Glenn Greenwald, a gay Jewish dude, who was married to a Brazilian dude, with adopted kids, is a "far right" figure because he disagrees with CNN. It seems silly, and anyone would obviously see through the attack. but the smear campaign ends up successfully pigeonholing people and ideas. So what you end up with is a lot of confusion, which leads to friction, which leads to chaos. You can kind of see a mini version of this playing out on "right wing" twitter lately.
While people are starting to realize the follies of "anti-racism" and globalization, that is a big problem that right and left will have to contend with. Even if you manage to get people off mass media brainwashing, there doesn't seem to be a lot of clear goals and ideas from the "new right." Not good when you're up against a highly entrenched and coordinated left.
Time will tell and it will play out as it plays out. At risk of sounding contradictory, there are clear danger signs for the machine. The fact that Trump is still a viable candidate in a post-watergate world shows that things aren't working quite like they should, and Germans getting increasingly pissed off with the greens shows that an obvious shift is coming.
predicting WHEN that will happen is a fools errand, but it will be sooner rather than later. AFA Europe goes, Germany will not lead the way. They're simply too weak at the moment. Britain or France will have to drag them along.
The “far right” description also loses its meaning when the goalposts are shifted as to what defines it and it is latched onto as a negative descriptor by mainstream media. For example one never reads Giorgia Meloni’s name without “far right” right beside it but she has been the most pro open borders prime minister in Italian history. However she is also somewhat socially conservative and is very pro NATO so in a sense she could be considered right wing, but that also shows how convoluted the definition is these days.
It's funny how you decry the right being pigonholed, and yet imagine the left as 'entranched and coordinated. That's a very large blind spot you have. It's e why things are going to get much worse. If you only give the benefit of the doubt to your own, you'll never be able to form alliances that will be necessary to effect any real change.
With a sprawling political, bureaucratic, and media apparatus that all say the exact same thing thats backed up by a never ending circle of patronage, that spans as far as the European Union, I don't think I'm imagining anything. I'm not trying to be "blackpilled" here, and that statement doesn't imply the right/center/whatever can't EVER get ahead and form something meaningful. Or that it's completely nonexistent.
But it's stone cold reality that the left has the upper hand in all those things.
It’s not possible to wait to act until alliances are formed in our case, as only action is proof, because operation EVERYONE IS A FED , our very own Godwin’s Iron law binds and paralyzes all men. The only people who can be trusted are those with proven history- Veterans, Cops, Criminals. < the latter very dodgy. The middle worse, and the Veterans only trust other Veterans. No one wants to go first and look like a sucker again.
That’s not fear but experience.
>So never trust anyone who hasn’t been to war or prison.
There’s another problem; as we have learned to our cost and dismay the rest of you have no fight in you, worst of all we can’t turn our backs on you making action impossible.
There’s no rightward shift, and no right to shift to- it’s just a sorting of Borderline personalities from the rest, they’re stepping to the Left, the rest of us are dumbfounded.
If Inert aka passive someone else decides, and if not raping and mutilating kids is RETURN then hit fucking RETURN .
This entire civilization debates the gender of angels whilst Demons play Doctor and Doctor Mengele. Who CARES what direction as long as it’s against them?
Can't say I've listened to much Rammstein. Though occasionally whenever I see some weird tentacle of American culture where I don't expect I always think of their music video for the song 'Amerika'. I remember asking a friend in high school who was big into metal what he thought of them and he replied "they're more about the pyrotechnics than anything".
Much to choose from today. Enervating reads! Regarding disability inflation, I wonder what dementing effects that culture of expectations will have on society where the bien pensants have been the main cultivators of it.
How relentlessly will we twist ourselves into knots, against all reality, to accommodate these unquestioned and unquestionable assumptions, particularly when the nature of them is that we are fundamentally weak and incapable in the face of life? Where will the divide be between those that snap out of it and decide to stare down existence and those that curl up and break... and how many of us will the latter also break in the process?
The cognitive profile of continually enabled fear and perceived weakness is that of a one-way spiral of dependence and hysteria that demands increasing resources at reduced ROI. Teach resilience, self-efficacy and positive self regard and you preclude this looming disaster.
Many people are waiting for, nay, predicting, that a critical mass of American people will finally snap, rise up, overthrow their corrupt and hostile rulers, take back their debased institutions (or close them down) and, for want of a better term, make America great again.
But it's not going to happen. Upheavals need organisation and leadership and neither of those things exist. Trump was, and still is, the closest thing and he's not going to win because they won't let him. Even if he did win, he would not have the power or maybe even the will, to do anything. Besides, if he does continue to present a problem, they can always rustle up a "lone gunman". They will get away with it, too. What are you going to do about it?
There are simply not enough people in the USA, or in the West, who are willing to step up. Quite aside from the fact that their lives will be ruined or ended, they have no idea what to replace the current system with. It's an abyss, a great, gaping roaring nothingness that no-one wants to step into or find themselves in. What then?
The alternative is no plausible alternative so things will stay as they are and the decline will continue; steadily but inexorably the USA will tumble down the steps of a protracted catabolic collapse which will, likely, take decades to unfold. In the meantime, a majority will still believe what they're told by the media, continue to vote and, above all, maintain their belief that everything will, somehow, turn out okay in the end. Even those who don't believe that have nowhere to go.
Most people still have comfortable lives with food on the table and a roof over their heads. Who wants to cast aside those certainties by throwing caution to the winds of history? So, there will be no revolutions, no civil wars and no return to the past.
Black Bear; there’s indeed no organization - on the other hand there’s enormous potential in those not with the regime, or the elites turning against it. The regime has lost the police and military for example, as well as the working and producing classes. Also bear in mind Americans are a remarkably self organizing and skilled people.
To predict the future is folly, and you are wrong that this continues- no. Either competent tyranny that wins force back, or the disintegration of DC and death of its leadership tosses the future to those that dare.
This doesn’t go on, Biden in and Trump out was the Boomers culminating moment. This is 1911 China- the Old Buddha is dying and there’s no successor.
There’s no bench, no succession in DC. This part literally dying.
The winner is the most fit warlord, like Mao in China.
There is way too much at stake to let the rot go on for any longer than necessary.
The post-Biden farce will be enacted under escalating geopolitical and economic pressure that cannot be wished away. Narrative management cannot resolve long running trends in productivity, finance, trade or the military. The visible neglect of the maintenance on the US surface fleet in the Pacific is shocking. Russia's victory over Ukraine will humiliate and discredit the regime on a colossal scale. If Poland grabs territory and the Russians drive them out NATO collapses.
The American Mao is quite possibly being courted or developed by one or other portion of the elite right now. One can only hope.
🗨 When you feel ashamed, you are comprehending the existence of beauty and moral order, and recognizing that you have failed to live up to these standards. You are realizing that you were weak when strength was required, vain when you should have been humble, loud when you needed to shut the fuck up and listen.
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Three new interviews in the works, plus a couple of essays. Bear with me!
Saturday commentary and review posted on a Saturday! It’s truly momentous! Congrats Nic!
I can't believe it myself.
I thought it was some weird joke that it kept coming out on Sunday.
A thought worthy of keeping, don't discard it on a whim 😉
I’ve been reading for 3 years it used to be more often they came out on Friday and not Sunday or Monday lol, but he’s on to bigger things!
Sic transit gloria mundi 🤭
It is obvious that the Establishment is conducting a witch hunt with respect to Trump. Nobody bothers to hide it anymore. What does Trump propose to do about it?
The same question can be laid at just about everything else in this essay. Yes, the West is ruled by totalitarians and raging hypocrites. Sociopaths. So, what are you going to do about it?
Compare the Western peoples with the Ukrainians and Russians in the Donbass who resisted the junta in Kiev. Expect nothing and you will not be disappointed.
The rulers do not care if they must use force and fraud to get what they want, as long as they get it.
Exactly. It is disappointing but this how it has always been. I feel ashamed and humiliated that I ever believed in the system (and served it for a while), but I was young and very naive. The worst, most degrading, servitude involves a voluntary surrender to enchantment and lies. Things will change in the West, but it will be a slow and bitter process. But, from a long-term perspective, this may be necessary. History has its seasons and things are getting a bit chilly now. We will all just have to make the best of it. But there is no point in despair. Bad as it is, things are a total joke compared to what people have gone through in the past.
I am not sure that things will change in the West, why do you think so?
I am assuming change over generations, maybe centuries. Dark ages pass. A world that produced Plato, Montaigne, Spinoza should not be written off.
I would hardly call their worlds ones of enlightenment, nor are such things limited to the West.
This 👆
At age 72 I can give full rein to my pessimism "What are you/we/they going to do about it?" "Nothing much" is the answer. Thanks to decades of vastly expanded tertiary' education (in the 95% lefty groupthink academy) millions of middle class people in the professional/managerial classes are (politically-speaking ) now full of groupthink shit. So how does Western civilisation 'recover' from this? It doesn't. Liberal individualism was great while it lasted. But it carried the seeds of its own demise (a tendency to narcissism, social fragmentation etc etc) and now its day is done. All civilisations eventually fail; this is how ours does. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
Those who run things could not care less,.as long as they get unfettered power.
...and riches.
OrangeMan says,' I swear, I didn't pull the Operation Warp Speed fire alarm—I'm innocent as a lamb!' C'mon FF...yup, all is forgiven, eh?
None of which has anything to do with why there is a witch hunt.
mea culpa, FF...'twas an ol'mechanic's brainfart...
No worries.
I Keep running uphill in body armor, added a 10lb bar now, etc etc.
Find someone weaker, and score a 'victory' against them, to make yourself feel better about accepting the violence that is inflicted on yourself.
What an incredible interview (with Kirn). Thanks for the share
It was a good read. I've tried to land him in the past but to no avail.
Kirn also has a book about being friends with a guy who turned out to be a massive con artist and murderer. It was the "Clark Rockefeller" impersonator, who turned out to be a German national who had come to the USA decades before as an exchange student.
Relatedly a family friend once met the fake Rockefeller and smelled a rat in a few seconds.
The Kansas City Times, September 13, 1976,
“He came to town for the Republican National Convention and will stay until the election in November TO DO GOD'S BIDDING: To tell the World, from Kansas City, this country has been found wanting and its days are numbered [...] He gestured toward a gleaming church dome. “The gold dome is the symbol of BABYLON,” he said.” [...] He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention an “idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a War with Russia.”
That 1976 FUTURE is NOW with the Revelation of the details GENERALLY unfolding in the spirit of the letter.
The World is waking up to see Americans may hasten “its days are numbered” part of the 1976 Vision, and waits with bated breath.
With the benefit of 47 years hindsight, the last 8 years of intensified FBI, Military, Intelligence and Think Tank “experts” on TV constantly, unanimously, demonizing Putin and Russia, with no dissent allowed, the People have been prepared.
The Times did a followup on ALL SOULS DAY, November 2, 1976.
https://rayjc.com/2013/09/01/signs-of-the-times/
Great post - idk about that Rammstein essay, their last tour featured a giant baby that spat out CGI flies, lots of explosions, and the synth player performing the whole show on a crazy gyroscopic/rotating treadmill. Not sure how that reinforced extreme right wing ideology.
Rammstein is very, very influenced by Laibach from Slovenia. They are very tongue-in-cheek with their lyrics and visual displays, playing with totalitarian symbols and the like.
I still can't believe they went after Roger Waters for performing The Wall - it's like saying 1984 is fascist because it describes The Party 🙄
They went after him for questioning the official Ukraine narrative. The insidious thing about wokeness and political correctness more generally is that it is weaponized against people who hold the wrong view on something that can't yet be turned into a cancelable offense - questioning/criticizing he government. The more things that can't be said, the more vulnerabilities that exist by which to selectively silence people for things that can still be said.
They did that to CJ Hopkins too for his ruthless criticism of German pandemic policy.
I just read today about the reception to the 1954 BBC adaptation of 1984 (with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith!). It was not well-received by the critics, with much hand-wringing about sex & violence, but clearly a deep undercurrent of discomfort with the black mirror held up to post-war Britain.
Trump's treatment at the hands of the regime is a test to see how docile the population are.
The US tolerated transparent electoral fraud in 2020 with barely a peep. The authorities in 26 states meekly accepted the dismissal of their suit for relief from fraud on procedural grounds. Since then reaction to Jan 6 has been escalating. There has also been response from Republicans over the case of Douglas Mackey.
One can only assume that the regime is emboldened by the passivity of its opponents and will continue to tighten the screws so as to deter any resistance over the next round of election fraud.
The beatings will continue until morale improves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In a way dovetails with the Q stuff which appears to be/have been a psyop to encourage passivity by reference to mysterious internal forces handling things (possibly modeled on Bolshevik Operation Trust) although who really knows
In hindsight it is evident that QAnon was a psyop and the underlying logic follows Operation Trust perfectly. That the regime has to rely on such things demonstrates the collapse of support and the unreliability of the old processes of legitimation. There is no way back. The only way forward is to deploy new psyops supplemented with force.
In the near term it appears that Niccolo is correct that a Trump victory is essential for push back on the totalitarian left particularly in the context of the radical climate scientism which is being proposed - in a Biden second term this can easily be used to dismantle much of what is left of the middle class (indirect and direct travel restrictions, farm closures, exponential costs of living increases, etc) and thus the primary impediment to a sort of neo-feudalism. However, the left still would retain control of all permanent institutions of relevance in the event of a Trump victory. Query whether he has the patience and judgment to even begin to engineer a long term reversal if this is even possible.
Trump/Biden is not the big picture. The future will be settled by productivity, the structure of the economy, global financial flows and trends in family life.
If elected Trump is likely to face the mother of all Colour Revolutions. At very best he salvages the system for a decade but this is unlikely. The US has lost the war in Ukraine and has restarted the Cold War from a position of profound weakness at home and abroad. .
So called neo-feudalism inevitable. Post petrodollar will see the US plunged into a condition much like the Great Depression but without functioning or credible institutions and a divided population poised for civil conflict.
If Newsom is elected (Biden is not viable) the Great Reset continues as planned.
Actually I think Biden is the last President as we have known it..
In America the PTB system don’t have the force, they have inertia and lack of alternatives.
The alternatives will have to be a ah sorting mechanism similar to post Qing dynasty China 1911-1949 (time frame unknown).
Philip you recall a year ago I pointed out Ukraine war was being used to secure the Atlantic 🇺🇸 Empire around the core, but they also needed options and the Strategic depth of Europe as a hedge against loss of territory- I mean from 🇺🇸 side not Russia.
This is why Empires have overseas or foreign lands- Strategic Depth. This saved France and England in both World Wars (DeGaulle started North in Chad, and most of his fight wasn’t against Germany but DC, read his memoirs).
That we decided to trash Germany to get our industry back is a calculated risk to shore up 🇺🇸 CONUS core against risking core periphery.
Trump won’t be POTUS again- just disruption. Nor RFK, Democracy has been fortified since 2018. Trump was too busy listening to Son in Law to pay attention.
Its October 2020 before he even puts anything about the Civil Service being subject to dismissal, the worst possible timing.
He still barely gets it; amazed he was arrested, he’s lucky he’s alive. This is Empire, if he was facing Men - he isn’t and wasn’t- he’d have been dead.
As the Republic 🗽 died, America 🇺🇸 asked her: who shall rule us?
And she rattled: The Strongest.
-----------
People who believe in elections are keeping Mothers corpse in the Fruit cellar, talking to her as if she were alive, taking her up to watch FOX news...
SHE’S DEAD 🗽 Bury Her.
But too soon I suppose...
re: disability and incentives, I remember seeing an article a while back that noticed how reports of things like chronic back pain vary from country to country in a way that tracks how generous disability payouts are. The more you incentivize disability, the more you'll get, just like with anything else.
On more than one occasion I've had students in college tell me about the generous accommodations they have due to their highly-questionable "ADHD" or whatever. When I ask whether the elephantine quantity of recreational drugs they're using might also be impairing their concentration, they react indignantly as if having the accommodation is their right. Not to vilify the students too much, they're responding to incentives and the world we've made for them after all.
"Honour System" is a relic of the past, which means that the attitude now is "why not take advantage of what is being presented to us?"
"why not take advantage of what is being presented to us?"— that seems like an attitude you would expect to see in a society that is either in the grips of disastrous poverty with every man for himself; a totalitarian society with no trust; or a more decadent society that wants to consume whatever they can before their time runs out.
seems like an attitude you would expect to see in a society that is either in the grips of disastrous poverty with every man for himself
That’s the USA now: either you climb the greasy pole anyway you can or live in poverty. Neoliberalism, privatization, and deindustrialization created the precarity and poverty these students are trying to avoid.
They see the “gig” workers scraping coins together to barely stay housed and fed; and the 100,000,000 working age adults that don’t have regular jobs.
There are no moral values displayed among our “leaders” who mouth false pieties while funneling wealth to the richest 1% decade after decade.
Where do you live?
Good and Honor are one thing, the law another entirely.
Tell me why I hire some entitled twat who majors in ADHD and working the system?
When it goes why do we feed them?
We don’t.
The leadership being scumbags - many elected of course- does not excuse scumbag behavior, nor will it avail them - those of lesser means will find them diminished when it’s found they are untrustworthy and have nothing to offer but lies.
An increasingly totalitarian society with a thrasymachian and materialist outlook
They’re rotten children who will discover they aren’t rich enough to be spoiled.
all of the above
Plain old ordinary greed.
No work ethic?
No problem!
AI, Asians and Migrants can do the work.
And their bitch lazy asses can fight for the dry spot on the underpass. Set up to fail and do, BYE!
I’m so glad a work ethic got ground into me by my father.
Post-petrodollar it all changes. The Potemkin Village bourgeoisie return to the masses. Dickens described what to expect.
Tale of 2 Cities?
I’m not a fan of him, of course I love history.
Oliver Twist. Re history, the US is getting into the reenactment of the post-Napoleonic era in Europe...hardship, repression and accelerated development. The EU will just get the hardship and repression.
Recent forays into history are forcing me to admit my worst fear for America, one I’ve long been avoiding facing; we are Carthage, or more accurately governed at the top by Carthage.
America itself is a decent and prosperous and productive land with very generous and fair people but has always been dominated at the top by greedy and cowardly fools with some exceptions. DC was always this way, Philadelphia before DC. After the Founders went to war , or Europe or to their home states the following Revolutionary war Congresses treated Washington and the Army as the Carthaginian Republic treated the Barcas, only the soldiers valor, Washington and the French saved the cause.
In the times since the nation was saved in wars by a Supreme Commander who marshaled the nation- Lincoln, Wilson, FDR.*
Other than that the military has always been more feared than any enemy, as indeed the people of America are now... ruled by selfish, mediocre cowards put in to safeguard mercantile and moneyed interests (the Southern interests leading to the Civil war no different except they lost, they would have made a plantation of the entire country black and sharecropper whites, quite known at the time).
* Desert Storm, the sole victory since 1945 DC was rallied by ... Bandar Al Sultan and Kuwaiti, Saudi money. Not Bush 41.
After the Civil War President Grant and General of the Army Sherman attempted to reform the War Department so the line Army would be properly supplied, they were frustrated and failed.
After FDR for all the blather about MIC the real game is the President’s loss of power to DOD and the rest; the CIA by statute is an Independent Agency, and has always behaved accordingly, every President since Truman ruined by war, some ruined by peace. The issue is DC prefers no one have the power if any of them have to give up a sliver, moreover they are puppets of money and interests, and neither money nor interests knows anything of war, statecraft or the good of the nation; this Doomed Carthage and Dooms our Empire.
The only thing we 🇺🇸 need to concern ourselves with is the nation and the people’s survival.
Carthage on my mind too. The Romans absorbed Carthage as much as they conquered it. The Roman state religion was essentially just magical rites for success in war and the key rite involved inviting the god of a hostile country to abandon his followers and defect to Rome. During the middle of the Punic Wars Rome paid attention to the tutelary god of Carthage..Ba'al-Hammon (aka Moloch in OT) whom they identified with Saturn. To tempt the god to Rome they did the usual (sacrifice a male and female slave of appropriate ethnicity) and added a twist. They reformed the previously established rites of Saturn and established gladiatorial games (previously only held in South italy as funerary rites) as a mass spectacle and a regular part of the Saturnalia. It was an oblique way of normalising himan sacrifice. After that the entertainment industry did the rest and the Romans became besotted with human sacrifice as a form of entertainment. The cult of Saturn thrived for centuries to come across the empire.
All this gels with Rene Girard's theories about mimetic exchange. The US rivalry with various parties appears to have resulted in the unacknowledged.incorporation of Soviet and other ideologies and practices.
Agree that the only thing is the welfare of the people. The rest is bullshit.
I’m not sure about post petrodollar, I’ve been hearing some version of collapse all my life.
Post Biden I believe in, for he surely is mortal and there’s no succession.
Increasingly in two minds on petrodollar. A period of serious austerity is inevitable but a true socio-economic collapse is unlikely. My guess is that the US will just default on its debt and the empire restructures itself.
Philip for years I’ve noticed every American political arrangement is a Federation from the Iroquois to now including the Internet which proves the point (the Structure of the Internet is Federation of Federations, network of networks a tad misleading, see BGP4 and IETF). Every overreach including the Iroquois Confederation led to collapse as the reach exceeded grasp - see The Crown 1765-1775, and so on.
I’ve been reading Francis Jennings on the Iroquois Covenant Chain (The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire- you’d find it fascinating) and am struck by the similarities to NATO including the ambiguous Article 5.
And my still gelling thesis and my point; the rich yet resource diverse lands and always diverse people of North America combined with matchless, easily traversable and navigable internal geography and matchless external geographic advantages COMPEL irresistibly Federation and always frustrate Empire. What this means is;
*The Inescapable Federation of America means there can’t be central control, which means any Empire is absurd. *
1. Its NOT a Republic or Empire, its a FEDERATION and GEOGRAPHY doesn’t negotiate.
2. Regardless of the Top level of government internally America will always be Federated.
3. 🇺🇸 somewhat founded as Thalassocracy and mercantile Republic was 241 years ago when that was true and the interior now so rich and developed and vast changed our economy; most of our commerce internal. America’s Crown Jewels our internal markets, facing Doom we’ve reclaimed industry at last.
4. You cannot have Empire externally if you don’t have internally, you must be Master of your own lands.
5. The present Masters are no such thing-
6. Even if they were conquerors , the greatest ever, they could never consolidate and hold without destroying most of the economy to centralize it around one sector they could control- this appears to have just been tried unconsciously with Finance and failed-
7. This 🇺🇸 Empire cannot last. This isn’t a logical contradiction (logic can make anything, it made Lenin) this is attempting to contradict GEOGRAPHY and self interest, greed. It goes against the interests of all concerned and the very land they stand on.
8. Not that they can’t dream of automated everything, endless fiat money , live in pods, eat the bugs...but it’s Delusional.
9. It now comes into focus that China wasn’t entirely wrong to burn the fleet, China is enough work for Chinese rulers.
10. And America is plenty enough for ours and ourselves, in any case we can’t extend either...
*The Inescapable Federation of America means there can’t be central control, which means any Empire is absurd. *
Many of them don't even take advantage of the accomodations unless absolutely necessary, when they're struggling with an assignment or class. That gives the game away. It's true they are responding to incentives, created by the universities, but they also aren't curious about material anymore and that's on them
Previously "hard" majors are also adopting what happened to the social sciences and humanities, namely making it near impossible to get below a C if you just do the homework and don't go missing for a month from class. It's again a combo of some professors wanting to "democratize" education, and other professors being forced to do so to avoid failing everyone and be hated/reprimanded
These kids also basically refuse to open up textbooks these days and professors assign them less than ever. I get it with the notorious cost factor for students, but again: degradation. It's also true in humanities that fewer books are assigned every year and it's not expensive to get copies of the classics in that case
They also won't Google despite abundant resources being free there. The professors have to provide everything in the Powerpoints or else the course gets negative reviews
I should clarify: they don't use the accomodations proactively
>Many of them don't even take advantage of the accomodations unless absolutely necessary
I mean, even if I were actually disabled, I'd still try to not use the accomodations if I could, out of pride if nothing else.
speed does make one a better student, as we knew back in the '60s & '70s. Getting the administration to endorse prescribing it is some kind of backdoor acknowledgement of same.
Weed, not so much.
I think we have to stop making incentives exculpatory.
One thing that keeps bugging me with the supposed "rightward shift" happening, is that the term "right wing" is vague, borderline meaningless. Glenn Greenwald, a gay Jewish dude, who was married to a Brazilian dude, with adopted kids, is a "far right" figure because he disagrees with CNN. It seems silly, and anyone would obviously see through the attack. but the smear campaign ends up successfully pigeonholing people and ideas. So what you end up with is a lot of confusion, which leads to friction, which leads to chaos. You can kind of see a mini version of this playing out on "right wing" twitter lately.
While people are starting to realize the follies of "anti-racism" and globalization, that is a big problem that right and left will have to contend with. Even if you manage to get people off mass media brainwashing, there doesn't seem to be a lot of clear goals and ideas from the "new right." Not good when you're up against a highly entrenched and coordinated left.
Time will tell and it will play out as it plays out. At risk of sounding contradictory, there are clear danger signs for the machine. The fact that Trump is still a viable candidate in a post-watergate world shows that things aren't working quite like they should, and Germans getting increasingly pissed off with the greens shows that an obvious shift is coming.
predicting WHEN that will happen is a fools errand, but it will be sooner rather than later. AFA Europe goes, Germany will not lead the way. They're simply too weak at the moment. Britain or France will have to drag them along.
This is not about right versus left imo.
Chaos is desired.
Propaganda works best when it is not believable
I think I might agree? in the sense of
-it's progressivism vs everything
-the chaos IS the point of the "pigeonholing"
You're point on propaganda, if it's that it's always loud and fantastical. Yes. And it is effective otherwise they'd stop doing it.
Well not my point but Arrendts...
It works as a show of force. Aka Winston smith
Fair enough
True. Point Deer, make Horse.
And shout Horse louder Comrade.
The right doesn't do dialectics whereas the totalitarian left has mastered them
The “far right” description also loses its meaning when the goalposts are shifted as to what defines it and it is latched onto as a negative descriptor by mainstream media. For example one never reads Giorgia Meloni’s name without “far right” right beside it but she has been the most pro open borders prime minister in Italian history. However she is also somewhat socially conservative and is very pro NATO so in a sense she could be considered right wing, but that also shows how convoluted the definition is these days.
It's funny how you decry the right being pigonholed, and yet imagine the left as 'entranched and coordinated. That's a very large blind spot you have. It's e why things are going to get much worse. If you only give the benefit of the doubt to your own, you'll never be able to form alliances that will be necessary to effect any real change.
With a sprawling political, bureaucratic, and media apparatus that all say the exact same thing thats backed up by a never ending circle of patronage, that spans as far as the European Union, I don't think I'm imagining anything. I'm not trying to be "blackpilled" here, and that statement doesn't imply the right/center/whatever can't EVER get ahead and form something meaningful. Or that it's completely nonexistent.
But it's stone cold reality that the left has the upper hand in all those things.
It’s not possible to wait to act until alliances are formed in our case, as only action is proof, because operation EVERYONE IS A FED , our very own Godwin’s Iron law binds and paralyzes all men. The only people who can be trusted are those with proven history- Veterans, Cops, Criminals. < the latter very dodgy. The middle worse, and the Veterans only trust other Veterans. No one wants to go first and look like a sucker again.
That’s not fear but experience.
>So never trust anyone who hasn’t been to war or prison.
There’s another problem; as we have learned to our cost and dismay the rest of you have no fight in you, worst of all we can’t turn our backs on you making action impossible.
Alliances?
Blood 🩸 In
Blood 🩸 Out.
There’s no rightward shift, and no right to shift to- it’s just a sorting of Borderline personalities from the rest, they’re stepping to the Left, the rest of us are dumbfounded.
You may be right.
All I know is the whole "RETURN" thing just isn't feasible. Time only moves in one direction, and it's not backwards.
If Inert aka passive someone else decides, and if not raping and mutilating kids is RETURN then hit fucking RETURN .
This entire civilization debates the gender of angels whilst Demons play Doctor and Doctor Mengele. Who CARES what direction as long as it’s against them?
Trump is not up to the task of changing the course of Good Ship America. It may be the reason he's still alive.
No. But on the other hand, he does seem to be the one thing that the disorganized right and "new right" unite behind.
He's the only guy who would EVER have pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. That is something.
He’s disruption until someone or something- must be both in fact- comes along.
For those who like Walter Kirn, subscribe to his new newspaper. That’s right, an actual newspaper: https://www.countyhighway.com/
Awesome! Thanks!
Informative as always, thank you.
Can't say I've listened to much Rammstein. Though occasionally whenever I see some weird tentacle of American culture where I don't expect I always think of their music video for the song 'Amerika'. I remember asking a friend in high school who was big into metal what he thought of them and he replied "they're more about the pyrotechnics than anything".
Much to choose from today. Enervating reads! Regarding disability inflation, I wonder what dementing effects that culture of expectations will have on society where the bien pensants have been the main cultivators of it.
How relentlessly will we twist ourselves into knots, against all reality, to accommodate these unquestioned and unquestionable assumptions, particularly when the nature of them is that we are fundamentally weak and incapable in the face of life? Where will the divide be between those that snap out of it and decide to stare down existence and those that curl up and break... and how many of us will the latter also break in the process?
The cognitive profile of continually enabled fear and perceived weakness is that of a one-way spiral of dependence and hysteria that demands increasing resources at reduced ROI. Teach resilience, self-efficacy and positive self regard and you preclude this looming disaster.
Disability inflation 🤣
Yer saying kick them in the nonces so they remember they’re men, right?
Many people are waiting for, nay, predicting, that a critical mass of American people will finally snap, rise up, overthrow their corrupt and hostile rulers, take back their debased institutions (or close them down) and, for want of a better term, make America great again.
But it's not going to happen. Upheavals need organisation and leadership and neither of those things exist. Trump was, and still is, the closest thing and he's not going to win because they won't let him. Even if he did win, he would not have the power or maybe even the will, to do anything. Besides, if he does continue to present a problem, they can always rustle up a "lone gunman". They will get away with it, too. What are you going to do about it?
There are simply not enough people in the USA, or in the West, who are willing to step up. Quite aside from the fact that their lives will be ruined or ended, they have no idea what to replace the current system with. It's an abyss, a great, gaping roaring nothingness that no-one wants to step into or find themselves in. What then?
The alternative is no plausible alternative so things will stay as they are and the decline will continue; steadily but inexorably the USA will tumble down the steps of a protracted catabolic collapse which will, likely, take decades to unfold. In the meantime, a majority will still believe what they're told by the media, continue to vote and, above all, maintain their belief that everything will, somehow, turn out okay in the end. Even those who don't believe that have nowhere to go.
Most people still have comfortable lives with food on the table and a roof over their heads. Who wants to cast aside those certainties by throwing caution to the winds of history? So, there will be no revolutions, no civil wars and no return to the past.
Black Bear; there’s indeed no organization - on the other hand there’s enormous potential in those not with the regime, or the elites turning against it. The regime has lost the police and military for example, as well as the working and producing classes. Also bear in mind Americans are a remarkably self organizing and skilled people.
To predict the future is folly, and you are wrong that this continues- no. Either competent tyranny that wins force back, or the disintegration of DC and death of its leadership tosses the future to those that dare.
This doesn’t go on, Biden in and Trump out was the Boomers culminating moment. This is 1911 China- the Old Buddha is dying and there’s no successor.
There’s no bench, no succession in DC. This part literally dying.
The winner is the most fit warlord, like Mao in China.
There is way too much at stake to let the rot go on for any longer than necessary.
The post-Biden farce will be enacted under escalating geopolitical and economic pressure that cannot be wished away. Narrative management cannot resolve long running trends in productivity, finance, trade or the military. The visible neglect of the maintenance on the US surface fleet in the Pacific is shocking. Russia's victory over Ukraine will humiliate and discredit the regime on a colossal scale. If Poland grabs territory and the Russians drive them out NATO collapses.
The American Mao is quite possibly being courted or developed by one or other portion of the elite right now. One can only hope.
Mao is not courted he is sorted..
US had its low moments in history but managed to recover. You are too gloomy.
💬 We live in a post-shame society after all.
Come Back, Shame (bylined You've been gone so very long) 😊 --> markbisone.substack.com/p/come-back-shame
🗨 When you feel ashamed, you are comprehending the existence of beauty and moral order, and recognizing that you have failed to live up to these standards. You are realizing that you were weak when strength was required, vain when you should have been humble, loud when you needed to shut the fuck up and listen.
The shameful debacle in Afghanistan led to some promotions.
But not Battlefield promotions of course 🤣
Populism (right or left) feels like a throwback to 2016. I'd much rather have a J.D. Vance than a Le Pen.
He’s phony
The biography into movie proves that in spades. The law degree too.
Vance proves my point: no successors