"Ban AfD in the Name of Democracy!", Biden Regime vs. Hungary, De-Dollarization Much Tougher Than It Sounds, Englishness As A Brand, 19th Century Slum Photography
I am headed to Zagreb tomorrow to attend a wedding this weekend and will not be anywhere near a laptop until at least Monday morning, so I decided to crank this one out today.
Please hit the like button at the top of the page to like this entry. Use the share or re-stack buttons to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so, and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already.
Request: please do share my content with others. Elon killing Substack links at Twitter has made promotion much, much more difficult for me. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do this on my behalf, I appreciate it!
Of course, the redefinition of democracy to deny the populace a voice is straight up 1984.
What is anyone proposing to do about it? Pointing out the raging hypocrisy of the German political class is not going to stop them.
Anyway, "The will of the people” has taken a back seat to concepts such as minority rights, for example, allowing those who act in the name of democracy to either disregard the will of the people, or outright penalize some representatives of that very same will."
Only when this corresponds with the elite consensus at the moment. For example, Protection Of Minority Rights is very important, but only when it's the right minority in the right place at the right time. A Kurd can do no wrong, but only as long as he is in Syria. Turkiye is far more ruthless when it comes to suppression of minorities, but a Kurd situated there cannot count on the same blanket support.
The continually evolving nature of Muh Democracy ever always only happens to reflect elite views at a given time and is used to shore up that elite consensus at that time.
Do you think Hungary will be able to resist the pressures applied to by the USA, or will it eventually fall and be turned into another Ireland, pozzed and subjected to mass immigration? Can it hold out and weather the storm?
The US ambassador to Hungary is a massive piece of shit, just an utter disgrace who makes me want to renounce my American citizenship.
If Germany keeps on in this anti-democratic direction perhaps they will change their name to the German Democratic Republic (GDR). I understand the name has been available since late 1990. It would fit right in with the economic wall the collective west has been erecting against Russia over the past couple of years.
One really amusing thing you see in America all the time is that the overlap of the people who place minority rights ahead of everything else in Our Democracy and the people who decry the minoritarian protections built into the Electoral College and the Senate is like 99%. Literally almost always the exact same people.
"Democracy is too precious to allow millions of people to participate in, it seems."
I am stealing this, and I'm going to use this at every opportunity in meatspace. I like the pithiness; it drives an important point about a major motivation in this freaking out over "saving democracy!".
My best friend has been living in Berlin for a bit. They're an American expat, with an interesting background. The one parent is a Haitian who has childhood memories of the Tonton Macoutes and having to flee with his parents from Papa Doc Duvalier's reign of terror. This news about the Germans planning to ban AFD has had both mom and dad telling them to consider leaving. The very sound/smart reasoning is once one political party is banned, very soon you're going to have trouble that extends beyond the ability to choose who rules you.
It makes me very sad. I love Germany and it's people, but I'm not confident that this rhetoric will be reeled back in. I hope I'm wrong!
"A ban is more popular in the west and among liberal Greens."
I can't go a few hours without hearing someone preaching about "political beliefs" and "political principles" (or the odious "Everything is Political!"), how they should take the place in our hearts where the Lord and his Good Book once resided, how they need to be the foremost consideration in everything from dating to breakfast cereal to the books you read (and even write).
But then I can't help but notice that all the Lefties I once knew and loved (or at least respected) took one look at the Orange Gorgon and were transformed into the opposite of all they once claimed as sacred beliefs. And not just a volte-face, but a double volte-face: 1) they have completely renounced and now vehemently oppose freedom of speech, thought, expression and of association, and are primed to punish any dissenters; and 2) they've gleefully climbed into bed with Big Tech, Big Pharma, the FBI and CIA, the US Military and any NGO or other corporate entity who promises to destroy their enemies.
So what does this say about our supposedly sacrosanct "political beliefs"? One lost election and they all go in the garbage? And "Democracy" gets redefined as "heads I win, tails you lose"?
Everyone has "beliefs" and "principles" until they get the chance to deliver the coup de grace to their enemies, then the gloves come off and the mask falls to reveal just another petty tyrant with delusions of grandeur.
Minority rights are the central mechanism by which this works. Because elites can choose whichever minority who's rights happen to coincide with what they like. The so called "oppression olympics" that Fox News dads were decrying ten years ago is precisely this: a hierarchy of minorities based on how closely that minority's particular ambitions, aesthetic, and so on, aligns with viewpoints, trends, and occasionally even interests of elites.
It never had much to do with how oppressed anyone is - they'll laugh at ethnic concentration camps as long as their memeplex lets them know it's okay. And this is not to say they're evil - this is just to say that they're human. What's unique to them is not even that they are living in an era of memetic selection (because that is even truer of "our" side). In fact, they're not even unique.
The age of memetic selection means that the symbolic order is controlled by the salience of truths, rather than by their correlation to reality (or derivation from the divine, or whatever else it could be instead but currently isn't) - but (at least for people who spend their time fighting over the symbolic order) we've been in an age of post-scarcity memetic selection at least since Sumer. In such an era, true power means the power to alter the symbolic order to conform to yourself (ie, the power to give the divine law - which is, not to command obedience of action, but to really change hearts and minds).
The biggest hole in my theory is that it's wrong. ISIS had the hearts and minds of the world. America, their enemy, had lots of money, which they used to bomb their rival into oblivion. Now people don't care about ISIS. Another Lost Cause maybe for some emuzzies who will hang controversial flag outside of trailer in refugee camp. Also, look at liberalism. Neither left nor right believes in it. Yet if either left or right deviates from it, they instantly are chopped off the vine of power and go into the ground to nourish the chthonic earth creatures (substack and podcasts or whatever lives down there). So ideology and power just seem to be irrelevant to eachother, except that power keeps ideology in check, and was ISIS really an ideology or just the pent up energy, dynamism, and fire latent in the Islamic spirit all these centuries, which other power noticed and squashed early (which explains why the hypocrisy about Saudi Arabia, which has the same ideology, but is not a power threat, and so was left alone).
Anyway, memes don't actually matter, they just pick a convenient minority as a moral shield, and we stupidly fling arrows at the shield praying to every now and again ding their helmet. If you look past the ideology you could understand them and power and maybe fight, but you'd also lose your reason to fight, because you'd understand how stupid the current fight is. When really, you should be fighting for peace and love on the internet with me and the other cyber sweethearts (yeah this is one of those gay ass milady BRG "lil clearpill" type posts, here on a FbF comment, i literally don't give a fuck cousin. Say some shit cuz im 6'13 and lift weights to your FACE NIGGA), because we're all one soul
The pettyness of the state department's "punishment" of Hungary amazes me. So that wealthier and more educated type of Hungarian who actually visits the USA is punished by removing the visa waiver. Therefore that part of society will become more anti-American. How does that benefit the USA?
Saturday Commentary and Review #135
I am headed to Zagreb tomorrow to attend a wedding this weekend and will not be anywhere near a laptop until at least Monday morning, so I decided to crank this one out today.
Please hit the like button at the top of the page to like this entry. Use the share or re-stack buttons to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so, and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already.
Request: please do share my content with others. Elon killing Substack links at Twitter has made promotion much, much more difficult for me. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do this on my behalf, I appreciate it!
First we get a Saturday Review on a Monday; now we get one on a Thursday? Niccolo, you’re a madman!
Anyways, looking forward to reading when I finish work. And it sounds like we all need to gift our friends with a subscription to FbF!
A week with two Saturdays! We are approaching the end times!
Of course, the redefinition of democracy to deny the populace a voice is straight up 1984.
What is anyone proposing to do about it? Pointing out the raging hypocrisy of the German political class is not going to stop them.
Anyway, "The will of the people” has taken a back seat to concepts such as minority rights, for example, allowing those who act in the name of democracy to either disregard the will of the people, or outright penalize some representatives of that very same will."
Only when this corresponds with the elite consensus at the moment. For example, Protection Of Minority Rights is very important, but only when it's the right minority in the right place at the right time. A Kurd can do no wrong, but only as long as he is in Syria. Turkiye is far more ruthless when it comes to suppression of minorities, but a Kurd situated there cannot count on the same blanket support.
The continually evolving nature of Muh Democracy ever always only happens to reflect elite views at a given time and is used to shore up that elite consensus at that time.
Do you think Hungary will be able to resist the pressures applied to by the USA, or will it eventually fall and be turned into another Ireland, pozzed and subjected to mass immigration? Can it hold out and weather the storm?
The US ambassador to Hungary is a massive piece of shit, just an utter disgrace who makes me want to renounce my American citizenship.
If Germany keeps on in this anti-democratic direction perhaps they will change their name to the German Democratic Republic (GDR). I understand the name has been available since late 1990. It would fit right in with the economic wall the collective west has been erecting against Russia over the past couple of years.
One really amusing thing you see in America all the time is that the overlap of the people who place minority rights ahead of everything else in Our Democracy and the people who decry the minoritarian protections built into the Electoral College and the Senate is like 99%. Literally almost always the exact same people.
Democracy
A system of governance where an informed electorate sees through the BS and holds their elected representatives to account.
Informed electorate
People who serve their country by following current events and political discussions.
Requirements: free speech, free press, transparency
"Democracy is too precious to allow millions of people to participate in, it seems."
I am stealing this, and I'm going to use this at every opportunity in meatspace. I like the pithiness; it drives an important point about a major motivation in this freaking out over "saving democracy!".
My best friend has been living in Berlin for a bit. They're an American expat, with an interesting background. The one parent is a Haitian who has childhood memories of the Tonton Macoutes and having to flee with his parents from Papa Doc Duvalier's reign of terror. This news about the Germans planning to ban AFD has had both mom and dad telling them to consider leaving. The very sound/smart reasoning is once one political party is banned, very soon you're going to have trouble that extends beyond the ability to choose who rules you.
It makes me very sad. I love Germany and it's people, but I'm not confident that this rhetoric will be reeled back in. I hope I'm wrong!
What a nice surprise – wish it was Saturday already.
"A ban is more popular in the west and among liberal Greens."
I can't go a few hours without hearing someone preaching about "political beliefs" and "political principles" (or the odious "Everything is Political!"), how they should take the place in our hearts where the Lord and his Good Book once resided, how they need to be the foremost consideration in everything from dating to breakfast cereal to the books you read (and even write).
But then I can't help but notice that all the Lefties I once knew and loved (or at least respected) took one look at the Orange Gorgon and were transformed into the opposite of all they once claimed as sacred beliefs. And not just a volte-face, but a double volte-face: 1) they have completely renounced and now vehemently oppose freedom of speech, thought, expression and of association, and are primed to punish any dissenters; and 2) they've gleefully climbed into bed with Big Tech, Big Pharma, the FBI and CIA, the US Military and any NGO or other corporate entity who promises to destroy their enemies.
So what does this say about our supposedly sacrosanct "political beliefs"? One lost election and they all go in the garbage? And "Democracy" gets redefined as "heads I win, tails you lose"?
Everyone has "beliefs" and "principles" until they get the chance to deliver the coup de grace to their enemies, then the gloves come off and the mask falls to reveal just another petty tyrant with delusions of grandeur.
Minority rights are the central mechanism by which this works. Because elites can choose whichever minority who's rights happen to coincide with what they like. The so called "oppression olympics" that Fox News dads were decrying ten years ago is precisely this: a hierarchy of minorities based on how closely that minority's particular ambitions, aesthetic, and so on, aligns with viewpoints, trends, and occasionally even interests of elites.
It never had much to do with how oppressed anyone is - they'll laugh at ethnic concentration camps as long as their memeplex lets them know it's okay. And this is not to say they're evil - this is just to say that they're human. What's unique to them is not even that they are living in an era of memetic selection (because that is even truer of "our" side). In fact, they're not even unique.
The age of memetic selection means that the symbolic order is controlled by the salience of truths, rather than by their correlation to reality (or derivation from the divine, or whatever else it could be instead but currently isn't) - but (at least for people who spend their time fighting over the symbolic order) we've been in an age of post-scarcity memetic selection at least since Sumer. In such an era, true power means the power to alter the symbolic order to conform to yourself (ie, the power to give the divine law - which is, not to command obedience of action, but to really change hearts and minds).
The biggest hole in my theory is that it's wrong. ISIS had the hearts and minds of the world. America, their enemy, had lots of money, which they used to bomb their rival into oblivion. Now people don't care about ISIS. Another Lost Cause maybe for some emuzzies who will hang controversial flag outside of trailer in refugee camp. Also, look at liberalism. Neither left nor right believes in it. Yet if either left or right deviates from it, they instantly are chopped off the vine of power and go into the ground to nourish the chthonic earth creatures (substack and podcasts or whatever lives down there). So ideology and power just seem to be irrelevant to eachother, except that power keeps ideology in check, and was ISIS really an ideology or just the pent up energy, dynamism, and fire latent in the Islamic spirit all these centuries, which other power noticed and squashed early (which explains why the hypocrisy about Saudi Arabia, which has the same ideology, but is not a power threat, and so was left alone).
Anyway, memes don't actually matter, they just pick a convenient minority as a moral shield, and we stupidly fling arrows at the shield praying to every now and again ding their helmet. If you look past the ideology you could understand them and power and maybe fight, but you'd also lose your reason to fight, because you'd understand how stupid the current fight is. When really, you should be fighting for peace and love on the internet with me and the other cyber sweethearts (yeah this is one of those gay ass milady BRG "lil clearpill" type posts, here on a FbF comment, i literally don't give a fuck cousin. Say some shit cuz im 6'13 and lift weights to your FACE NIGGA), because we're all one soul
Re the Brics and the USD dedollarisation debate covering both transactional mediums and reserve assetts.
The following article What I Have Learned Since 1971: Beyond The Reserve Currency by French financier Charles Gave is a very useful read IMHO
https://haymaker.substack.com/p/making-hay-monday-guest-article
Off-topic: I came across this series of tweets and would welcome comment by our esteemed host:
Feast of Blessed Miroslav Bulešić, killed by Communists:
https://twitter.com/NoTrueScotist/status/1694603377731309641
Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour on the Brits & Communists:
https://twitter.com/HorcherF/status/1694681194506441143
https://hungarianreview.com/article/history-and-grace/
Forced conversion of Serbs to Catholicism:
https://twitter.com/AschRonald/status/1694717221619306761
The pettyness of the state department's "punishment" of Hungary amazes me. So that wealthier and more educated type of Hungarian who actually visits the USA is punished by removing the visa waiver. Therefore that part of society will become more anti-American. How does that benefit the USA?