Corisca Aflame, Ukraine's Far Right and Neo-Nazi Forces, US Economic Threats Towards China, Dave Rubin and Conservatism, the 10 Biggest Books of the 1970s
The older I get the more I come to realize that nothing substantive in human nature really changes, just the language. Colonialism never really ended, it just got rebranded as Globalism. Slavery never ended, it just got rebranded as the petrodollar. The end of history wasn't the end of history, it was America's conquering of the world. Secularism isn't real, it's just rebranded as woke paganism.
America conquered Western Europe as the spoils of "winning" the Cold War. All the McDonalds in people's countries were the new flags of American territory. The reason why liberalism and particularly leftism is so important for the public relations is because it is the perfect avatar to conceal reality. A reality that hasn't changed from the beginning of time. Civilizations want to conquer the world. It's a human impulse of ambition. Using references to heroism and care/sympathy is the perfect tool for power as it 1. dissuades people from admitting reality out of the fear of feeling stupid 2. it attracts people who yearn for both meaning and dominance that exists because status competitions inevitably leave the bottom 80% of the population dispossessed.
Freedom of speech? Canceled and censored because you don't have the right "morals"
Freedom of assembly? Tell that to the truckers
Free markets? Cancel Russia and seize Canadian bank accounts
Freedom of expression? Cancel Dostoevski and the Russian ballet!
Spreading democracy? Tell that to Guatemala, Chile, and Iran
Rules based order? Iraq, Libya, Syria
The American empire is an empire like that of any other civilization in history. Do I blame it? Nope. I'm just glad more people recognize it for what it is. But with that clarity, comes more of a need of repression. And more repression is almost guaranteed.
I don't think the "American" empire is similar to previous empires, other than perhaps the USSR. I also wouldn't refer to the USA as "American", as those people haven't run the state since (debatably) the Reagan Or HWB administrations.
The USA empire is actually quite unusual... I would characterize the British empire as being innovative in that it was a mixed military/mercantile empire.
The USA empire is a further innovation in that it is a military/mercantile/marxist empire. Marxist in the sense of using scientifically constructed media narratives to control societies.
This dynamic is something I think Darren Beattie understands... that to defend against the USA empire, a state must maintain "media sovereignty" so that it can shield it's population from USA marxist narratives. China has managed this with the great firewall... to some extent Russia and Iran have managed this as well.
But media sovereignty is very difficult to maintain in the era of internet connected smartphones in everyone's pocket. This is certainly very different than previous empires.
In other ways of course, the USA empire is similar... exploitative, etc. - of course this is your point but I still wouldn't characterize USA empire as anything other than extremely innovative.
Extremely innovative because technology permits it to be so however the basic fundamentals of empire which people choose to shield themselves from remains. America wants to run the world admittedly so but the rationale for most symps is the mythology people like to tell themselves. How else are elites going to convince a bunch of people's children to go die for the interests? Its a tale as old as time is my point. The dissecting, strategizing, innovating, etc are all just layered reasoning behind what's really just a desire to rule the world. Before it was world domination. Now its global leadership. And all these other countries who call themselves the West are just vassal states of the Empire.
As for the system, it's mercantile/martial again just like every other dominant civilization before it. Conquer new lands, expect taxes, if people resist, use force for compliance. What America gets wrong and what I think you are alluding to is that America seeks cultural infiltration as a new strategy to manufacture loyalty. Why this is a mistake is that civilizations that do so do it at their own peril. The Mongols, arguably the greatest civilization in terms of dominance, did not try and reshape every conquered lands territory. They took over, demanded leadership bend the knee to the Khan, pay taxes and everyone was free to go on about their day. Refuse and everyone in the village was killed. This is what's wrong with America's approach. It still thinks that America based on its hubris, can go into foreign lands and people will just say hey these guys are awesome. Afghanistan proved otherwise. People in other countries despise the Americans and the only people who care are the ones who are getting bribed or skimming to pay lip service. What made America believe in its own bullshit was Japan and Germany. Both those countries were so devastated by the war that they had no will to resist. And that's what America's problem is. If it were to stop pretending it's not an empire, it would do what empires do to get submission. Brutalize entire nations to the point where nobody in those areas will ever dare question who is in charge. Instead, America does bombing raids and then comes in and tries to be everyone's friend. It's all so fake and ghey
It isn’t just “mercantile/martial” again as with prior systems, that’s my point.
The Mongol empire did not need to care what it’s subjects thought, because it wasn’t a Marxist empire. The US is a Marxist empire, so it -must- care what it’s subjects think. That’s the way its system works.
It would be as if one said “why does the USSR need to care whether it’s subjects believe in the communist revolution - why can’t it just let them believe as they wish?”
Well, because when USSR subjects stopped believing in communism, the empire dissolved. It was held together (substantially) by that belief system. That’s how Marxism works!
It’s like saying why do the subjects of the Abbasid caliphate need to believe in Islam. Because it’s a Muslim empire - that’s how it works!
US empire subjects must believe in its current state religion of Marxist “liberalism” aka globohomo. Now that the USSR is gone, the US does not have enough money or military resources to control its empire without the state religion.
So I certainly agree with you on many points, but I think this distinction is important.
I would be careful about all the people who "believed" in marxism. There was an old saying in the communist countries, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. It wasn't a belief. It was a fear of the alternative. It's not marxian in the sense that people need to be converted. It's simply a way to project western power in the world. America is 250 years old. It doesn't have a history that spans centuries, and the history it does have is constantly dissected and shit on on a regular basis that no one has the will the defend it. This is why the American elites are so bad at what they do and why they feel it necessary to impose the "end of history" onto other countries. If a country that is 250 years old has to compete with other nations that have history spanning hundreds or even thousands of years, it can't overcome that asymmetry by virtue of material history. Therefore, it tries to market some end of history nonsense to completely destroy historical memories from other nations in order to not have to play that game. If the world becomes Year Zero then the only game in town is this goofy woke nonsense and no one will have territorial loyalties. With zero territorial anchors for other countries, those countries will be more prone to succumbing to the impulses of American decadence. But make no mistake, the state "religion" will be abandoned the moment American elites recognize it as a liability. Notice now that the liberals are starting to see pushback enough that challenges their positions of formal power (elections are to signify formal power where the lib knows it already owns all the institutional power) so suddenly the NYT aka the dept of information is coming out with articles like hey maybe went a little too far with this whole who needs free speech anyway. And for the communist "revolution" it was a bureaucratic revolution of managers not some ideological framework that it was sold as. I give muslims credit, they actually believe in Islam. These Western iterations of "state religion" is just some cynical obfuscation again to conceal the timeless thirst for power.
In this compilation of bad news, what stomach punched me the most was the two men and two babies story. Gross. Looking at two men displaying ultrasound photos (or, in the case of Pete and chastan buttigieg, actual newborns) like automobiles or bottles of rare liquor throws into stark relief the acquisitive, dehumanizing and woman hating impulses behind this legal baby burglary. But, as you astutely point out, the reaction from those who should really and truly know better is also extremely upsetting. Ugh. Glad you ended with the 70s book list. I was a teenager in the 70s, so several of the books listed there had a profound effect on me. Thanks for the fun nostalgia trip in the midst of the mad decline. Shine on
You’re right of course. This is why I draw a very hard line against IVF as well. I was just addressing that part of this sub stack article. Another interesting - and relevant I think - issue is that Ukraine is the surrogacy capital for Western European couples living in countries where it is outlawed.
Once we ban the pill, and remove plastics from our food and water supplies, then maybe we can consider IVF as a measure for married couples only who have difficulty conceiving.
I was 39 and my wife of less than 6 months almost 35 when she became pregnant. Conception had to have occurred on the first or second time we had unprotected sex. She was surprised, but I wasn’t: Neither of us smoke, we don’t drink heavily, my wife was neither overweight nor underweight, neither of us have any STIs; correspondingly neither of us had a lot of former sexual partners. My wife has never been on the pill for any sustained period of time and always used protection, and never had an abortion. What do you know, it’s almost like the women’s magazine narratives are total bullshit and create this fantasy where it’s supposedly normal to have difficulty conceiving (a complete biological and evolutionary impossibility, of course) and normalise giving birth later and later through stories of Hollywood actresses doing so, or, even more grotesque, adopting exotic children like they would a pet. What grinds my gears is how people and especially women are so consistently lied to about the reality of life and what human beings are as a species, and so many of them then live their lives according to these fantasies that you can do whatever you want, sleep with as many people as you want, have dangerous, reckless sex and just get it sorted with some penicillin or an abortion and think you will still be able to conceive and give birth when you are nearly 40. 🤷♂️
I love Substack because you find people who defy expectation in their mix of views and that always makes for very interesting articles. I appreciate the more nuanced view of the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, even if you pulled it from somewhere else. I read this article mainly because Dave Rubin caught my eye. I am ambivalent about Dave Rubin in general. I enjoy his takes when I catch them, but sometimes he feels like someone who found a niche and is exploiting it and could easily change with the wind. However, while I find your perspective on conservatives understandable (and, yes, the destruction of 16 zygotes to get two viable children causes problems for a party set on heartbeat laws and illegalizing abortion for entoptic pregnancy), as a political orphan, about the only thing that makes conservatives palatable is this blurring of the "culture war" lines in order to fight for things that were traditionally the purview of liberals, such as free speech, the rights of the working and middle class not to be turned into a serf class for the elites, the rights of parents, the right to bodily autonomy, right to privacy, right to due process, keeping our nose out of foreign conflicts, etc.
Yeah those. Some of those fundamentals conservatives always have espoused, but others they haven't or they have but only as they pertain to certain circumstances directly applicable to them. Most current self-labelling liberals and progressives however have thrown them all up. It's hard to find any that have held a consistent view, and most of them are accused now of being "right-wing."
Uh, no. There are very many conservatives in America, it's just that their political representation are a captive and phony, controlled and bought opposition.
This is exactly how we got Trump, and probably how we'll eventually get the Hitler or Pinochet that saves us from madness - if anything does. We're not really orphans just utterly leaderless, the numbers are far greater than any other group and cross all the lines of race and economy, mind you there's probably nothing for LGBT when sanity returns.
The destruction of 16 Zygotes will be a concern to you and your sort when you're defined as non-human as well, and 'destroyed'. Your sort isn't palatable to my sort either....
Why, you're not really human, you're just 'tissue'.
And this is why I hesitate to support conservatives. I'm not willing to tell a bunch of women who have something that does not have organs and is just a mass of cells and can't survive on its own even with the mass of technology we have today, nothing but a glorified tumor, that that tumor has rights equivalent to their own and they have no control over whether or not they allow it to continue growing inside them into a human. There is gray area here and and you're not helping your case. You're just making me think that just like the "sane" liberal anymore is a rarity, so is the "sane" conservative, so we're all pretty screwed.
And to the people in charge, we're all just "tissue" and non-human, but while we're arguing over zygotes, they're turning us into fodder for their own machinations, and that's just how they like it.
You're not willing to do that because you're a pussy, a nothing.
This is not about individual liberty, it's about trying to use technology to get around the facts of life to do something unnatural and horrible, and it should physically revolt you. "Muh body" is not a morality, it's a laissez-faire counterfeit. It's not "my opinion", it's just true and correct that two gay men cannot conceive. Nor is a 40 year old roastie who's had several abortions, STIs, been on the pill most of her life, and who smokes very likely to, either.
Morality is just a formalisation of the recognition that nothing in life comes without a price. To try to buy your way around that is despicable. To fail to call it out is to be complicit.
A zygote is a tumor until it's something more. And you're focusing on emotional appeals that rely on a shared philosophy of when life starts. It won't work on any thinking person.
No, I'm not willing to do that because I am quite literally a "pussy," meaning I have a "pussy," and having a "pussy," I have considered what would happen were I to get in the wrong situation. Would I want the chance to end a pregnancy, especially before the fetus is anything more than a fingertip's worth of cells in random order? The answer is yes. And because I would like that option, I will extend that option to other "pussies." That's called integrity and compassion and consistency. I don't tell you what to do with your body. You don't tell me what to do with mine.
Does that mean that for practical reasons, I don't think there should be limits on abortions after a certain point? No, because I want human rights to start inside the womb so we're not deciding outside the womb who has a basic right to life. Oddly enough, you and the long warred strike me as the kind of people that would need that kind of rule as you judge others much too harshly without walking in their shoes and would gladly judge some other already born humans of not worthy of breathing the same air you do.
"No, I'm not willing to do that because I am quite literally a "pussy,""
Not to be unkind, but there we have the problem.
Please read up on the literature regarding how females are much more conforming than men (In current lingo: much more prone to supporting the current thing. or in other words much more prone to holding whatever opnions and norms are the socially accepted ones), more prone to police whatever happens to be considered unacceptable social behavior or unacceptable norms
Please also check up on the literature on which sex is most influenced by emotions when forming opinions and making decisions.
I don't wan't to appear mean, but I let the truth be my guide and adjust what I think is optimal policy according to that.
"Conforming" is never a word anyone would apply to most women in my life without copious use of sarcasm, but considering most of history, with very few exceptions, has been women under the thumb of men, with men literally thinking of women as property, you can forgive us for being in various stages of "finding" ourselves. Conformity for us has been a matter of survival, so give us some time.
You should hesitate to support conservatives, they don't exist except as controlled opposition fraud.
I am also not against the weak or the morally monstrous killing their own children, in fact the more dead the better. Anyone who considers their own child a tumor - by all means, do eliminate yourself from the gene pool.
In fact we're all just zygotes, and the weak need to be culled. Self culling perfect.
Especially as the majority are of course Democrats, and in truth the majority of abortions come from a troublesome 13.5% of the population.
As for helping my case, lol. What will help my case is we apply the methods and indeed precedents set by our mortal enemies against them...so state sanctioned slaughter works fine for me. I am out to convince no one, just learn from their successes and apply to our own cause.
Well, conserving American hegemony of course! You've said it yourself, the American populous needs a new Church and a new religion, but one of the Now. Imagine having a country full of islamist fundamentalist devotion tied to new world order scientific and political ideas? If such a thing were to truly come about, you would have a country advancing in fields that were before considered taboo, all the while being ready to obliterate those convicted of apostasy from the New Church. Genetic engineering, techno feudalism, surveillance state, etc. - you got it!
The neo nazi issue would be easier to discuss if the West was sane (now we can add Russia to the list of insane land masses).
It's as follows:
- best way to resist in face of a large empire is National Collectivism in some form
- in Ukraine this takes form of the badly defined, rather ambiguous National Idea, with some pagan Slavic symbolism that exists all over Europe and is not evil, just your usual folk stuff, like the Kolovrat in its endless forms
- in war you ally with the Devil as necessary, if you desire to survive
The way Azov and other similar orgs should be described is rather simple:
Nationalists have taken up arms against an invader. Their methods are the methods of war, and look extreme to cozy, fragile Westerners. The invader is just as ruthless and dangerous.
Nobody will die for liberalism and progressivism. Nobody will die to defend the polycules of US or the ghettos of Baltimore.
But people will die for a National Idea, an ideal, imperfect as it is. And if your National construct is to survive, you better sell the best National Idea version available.
The only contradictions and issues with this are in the progressive, frail, deviant West. Everyone sane understands war and survival but the West.
It's likely the support of the Azov battalion by Kolomoisky and by proxy USA was as planned to build a population that would fight to the death while also having potential to remain an "insurrectionist" movement were Russia to invade.
Nice links. Re: Nazis and Ukraine, I don’t think their tolerance of highly motivated and violent extremists is unusual in a country divided by civil war. The most ruthless killers of Republican Spain, the French resistance, the Italian resistance, the recent Balkan civil wars, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and in almost every African or Middle Eastern country under civil war tend to be criminals or extremists, often totalitarian and sectarian and willing to eliminate both the “enemy” as well as (later on) their allies in the civil war who may not be true believers. When the stakes are high it seems morality goes out the window.
Been a while since Germany or France or Italy have been in that situation. Given their history and human nature, does anyone doubt that unsavory elements would find themselves useful in a civil war? By the way- were all people even loosely associated with the Brigate Rosse or the Revolutonaere Kampf banned from public life?
Of course Ukraine’s Nazis should be condemned and Western elites are hypocrites for turning a blind eye. Meanwhile, the Biden admin is bending over backwards to cut a deal with Iran, which backs sectarian death squads in half a dozen countries.
Re: China and RMB becoming a global reserve and transactional currency. This is not the way economics works. Very difficult to be both a mercantilist country with a perennial trade surplus AND have your currency be the global trade currency. By definition, a mercantilist is going to have to invest in the countries it trades with or lend to them. The flip side of a current account surplus is a capital account deficit. This creates demand for foreign (non-Chinese) currency, not demand for Yuan, and increasing the global supply of one’s own currency is usually done by importing, not by exporting.
Which is why us losing world reserve currency and petrodollar status is good for the American people - who bear the burdens of the Mad Empire that dare not speak it's own name - despite any temporary pain. We were fine before Empire, the New Deal and WW2 drove us mad , or at least our elites mad.
We suffer the burden including the trade deficits and loss of industry.
What's the difference between an Islamist and a Muslim? There is no punchline, I'm genuinely curious. Is this yet again another irritating example of "nuance" to signal "tolerance" in order to enable us to blandly and dully view something that could involve the wrong kind of fervor? I dunno. I do know UnHerd is the very essence of the word "herd" and are raving modernists.
I see from your photo that the Corsicans have altered their symbol. Before, the eyes were covered, as the image represented a captured (and possibly beheaded) Muslim pirate-slaver – frequent visitors to Corsica, and not as tourists. I assume the Corsicans are trying to be more polite these days, but by definition the image isn't tolerant in the modern sense where certain groups – non-Christian or non-white – have no agency, and are to be presented always as victims, instead of malevolent invaders. I suppose that's why they blurred the history a bit by raising the blindfold, to smooth over certain things about Corsica/Islam in general.
Vendetta originated in Corsica because the people apparently couldn't trust the system to deal with grievances fairly. So, Corsicans resorted to a violent honor system in order to settle slights. There's an interesting but not terribly well-written book by Dorothy Carrington called The Dream Hunters of Corsica which might offer some background for curious souls.
It usually involves letting a political crisis run out of steam by launching inquiries that take a year or two to start, and then get delayed again, and so on.
Eclectic collection this week! And no discussion of Russia’s escalation using high tech weaponry? Surprising!
In the 2000’s, Bugliosi wrote a book about prosecuting GW Bush for murder for the Iraq War. He contacted District Attorneys around the US trying to find one who would open a murder case (if a US soldier residing in that district had been killed in the war). The book was terrible but the legal concept unique.
My prediction of the week is that this is where you’ll be the Ukrainian Army collapse. The new expansion of weapon systems will demoralize the military, Mariupol will fall, and Kiev will be isolated. I project a general retreat within 1-2 weeks. Predicated that the US isn’t stupid enough to escalate to get more Ukrainians killed.
The war in Ukraine is a shameful and cynical ploy by our mad elites, and a stain on our Honor - ours mind you, not the US elites. They have none, nor shame.
It should end immediately.
The effect of the Hypersonic weapons is being hyped, no particular media hyped weapons causes a collapse in moral or the ability to fight. Being surrounded and running out of ammo, land, men and in a hopeless position DOES cause collapse.
Moreover I predict little or no significant Ukrainian 'resistance' after the peace settlement, truly their hearts are not in this ....Western hearts and the Resistance from Safe Distance 'hearts' are in this war. When and not if they see war the stomach for war will leave them....
I agree with your comment but to quibble there is actually weapons that causes a collapse in moral or ability to fight.
First tactical nuclear weapons in the 20 kT to 100 kT range used against medium cities (100000-500000 inhabitants) and in the 150-500 kT range used against large cities (500000+ inhabitants).
Second chemical agents weaponized ready for delivery by bombs or artillery shells or rocket lauchers - especially VX nerve agent since this does not evapourate and are quite stable and can stay in the environment for a week or two or three depending on circumstances.
Both of these kinds of weapons used in decent numbers against cities would probably quite fast destroy moral and will to fight.
I am not recommending this, just saying such weapons exists.
Unfortunately nuclear weapons seem to be very much anti-hyped by western media. Some more hype would do us a lot of good.
In a recent poll 35 % of americans said they were for (12 % were "strongly for" [Pure insanity - my comment] and 23 % were "somewhat for") "military intervention" towards russia "even if it has a risk of leading to a nuclear conflict".
Yes but 1] that's just the poll sample and 2] polls consistently show that people are answering polls without thinking it through ...I really don't believe in polls.
For me to ever again believe in a poll the pollsters would have to tell me how many flat out rejections , that is refused to answer they got...
No person aware of the situation in 2022 America would answer a poll honestly, or do anything but hang up the phone. Why make yourself a target?
I will concede that the use of nuclear weapons would change matters.
Chemical warfare is overrated and too provocative to really be profitable, since WW1 it's mainly been used on tribesmen without protective gear, which negate it's effects. It just doesn't work well enough to make it worth the heat.
A significant issue facing right-wingers in the US is that the so-called "conservative" movement is in truth a political movement of anti-fascist liberals. This is a particular issue as many marxist techniques are designed to hack liberalism. Therefore, a political movement of "conservatives" who are in truth anti-fascist liberals is really, really, really ineffective at fighting marxist narratives.
This gets at "why do conservatives never conserve anything". They endlessly lose because they are the paper party going up against the scissors party.
It would help if we first fixed our terminology. The "regime", such as it is, is a conspiracy of narrative and process manipulators. Let's not let them control the narrative by picking our terms for us.
The "conservative" party is the liberal party. Let's consistently call them liberals. The thing they are trying to conserve is liberalism - "classical liberalism"... i.e. liberalism before the narrative manipulators got to work on it.
The so-called "liberal" party is the internationalist/marxist/progressive party. They are trying to get what they want by CLAIMING they are liberals. This scheme works because the opposition party, the "conservatives" is actually the liberal party. So "conservative" opposition is made vulnerable to internationalist/marxist/progressive goals if those goals are phrased as liberalism.
So, we should not call the "blue movement" in the US liberalism. That's what they WANT us to call it. Let's not do that.
Unfortunately, the US in a tough spot if it is being attacked by a committed group of marxists. Like, what is one to do - explain to the public that actually the right response is for a right-wing government to "restrain" bad actors in the media/academia/NGO complex? Or, will you debate the marxists and defeat them in the "marketplace of ideas"? That's what they want you to try to do! Good luck with that.
In addition, I suppose it has become apparent that in hindsight, much of the "civil rights movement" in the US is a marxist, even marxist leninist movement (with the civil rights act underpinning the leninist component). If so, the US may be in fairly severe danger.
But, at least we can frame the issue correctly and NOT call team blue liberals. They aren't liberals... they are IMPs (internationalist marxist progressives) describing themselves with liberal narratives.
Most of the people I know who vote Democrat aspire to the middle class and put signs in their immaculate front yards proclaiming they aren't racist. The Chinese, who call themselves Communist, wouldn't dream of taking in any non-Han, let alone millions, and turning themselves into a minority.
So, you're against invitro fertilization which always fertilizes more eggs than are necessary, and surrogacy which many women who can't carry a child to term use to have children. These practices have been around for decades, and I don't recall anyone but the hard-core Christian right complaining until now. They are also against gay marriage. So, I guess that makes you an anti-gay bigot. Being an intolerant bigot isn't conservative.
Excellent example of this dynamic. The ideology that conservatives are trying to conserve is liberalism. This puts them in a tough spot against extremely clever internationalist marxist progressives who are good at phrasing their goals as simply an expansion or extension of liberalism.
Conservatism is all about being bigoted, and moralistic, discriminatory and judgemental.
If you’ve read your de Maistre you’ll know that the important values are to be held dear, sacred, and celebrated, not measured up for sale or hedged about with legal limits.
Important values need a generous hinterland around them, a benefit of the doubt in their favour.
The word bigot, origins obscure, is supposed to derive from one of those rude names for a neighbouring tribe, like Welsh means Foreigner. So Bigot is a term of irreducible identity.
The world is full of Archie Bunkers. Try to think of yourself as Archie Bunker fending off some other Archie Bunker coming up your lawn, that has absolutely no time for your sacred values and won’t discuss it.
Well, I don't expect anyone to have time for my sacred values. And my most cherished sacred values are peace and love. I believe that people get to believe whatever they want as long as they don't impose their beliefs on others, and they don't start fights. You shouldn't see people doing things you don't approve of as imposing anything on you. No one is coming up your lawn with anything. You have the right to your opinions and everyone else has a right to theirs. Civil debate is fine, fighting isn't.
Interesting, so if the world is full of hate filled bigots, I am obligated to be one too? The world that exists is one where people rationalize hate. I choose not to be a lemming.
The de-dollarisation of the global economy is one of the more under-appreciated aspects of the Ukraine conflict. Ironically, Washington's weaponisation of SWIFT is likely to accelerate the search for alternatives. The more the U.S. seeks to sanction so-called bad actors by cutting off their access to SWIFT, the less the system itself will be viewed as a neutral international interbank network, rather than an instrument of arbitrary U.S. power subject to the caprices of the U.S. government.
⁋ As more and more countries begin to see SWIFT in these terms, it will inevitably induce moves to create an alternative. This will further diminish dollar liquidity, as well as enhancing liquidity for alternative currencies as they lend their support to this new system.
China is already in the process of establishing a new system: China’s Cross-Border International Payments System, its CIPS to the West’s SWIFT, now has poll position to emerge as SWIFT’s likely main competitor.
In the past, exclusion from SWIFT meant complete isolation from global markets and normal trade financing, as in the case of American sanctions against Iran. But the CIPS system, which China began to develop in 2015, is now fully operational.
CIPS is fully operational, and the Ukrainian war will expand its use and network capabilities. Note that as the euro and other major currencies have been sliding during the intensifying conflict in Ukraine, the yuan has increasingly been growing as a “safe haven” currency—a role hitherto dominated by King Dollar.
Growing awareness and attempts to work around US economic dominance don't necessarily prove US decline. In fact, they may be responses to increasing dominance. The comment above about balance of payments is instructive. China and the Petrostates can only reduce US power by accepting lower prices for their exports (ie. selling to nonaligned at a discount), or by stockpiling (refusing to sell). By accepting the West's worthless printed currency at face value in return for their products, they are then forced to buy our worthless negative yield debt to recycle the money (or import our resources, or buy our productive assets at face value). When the system crashes it hurts China and Russia more, as money flocks to the hegemon for safety. Win win win win for the West.
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The older I get the more I come to realize that nothing substantive in human nature really changes, just the language. Colonialism never really ended, it just got rebranded as Globalism. Slavery never ended, it just got rebranded as the petrodollar. The end of history wasn't the end of history, it was America's conquering of the world. Secularism isn't real, it's just rebranded as woke paganism.
America conquered Western Europe as the spoils of "winning" the Cold War. All the McDonalds in people's countries were the new flags of American territory. The reason why liberalism and particularly leftism is so important for the public relations is because it is the perfect avatar to conceal reality. A reality that hasn't changed from the beginning of time. Civilizations want to conquer the world. It's a human impulse of ambition. Using references to heroism and care/sympathy is the perfect tool for power as it 1. dissuades people from admitting reality out of the fear of feeling stupid 2. it attracts people who yearn for both meaning and dominance that exists because status competitions inevitably leave the bottom 80% of the population dispossessed.
Freedom of speech? Canceled and censored because you don't have the right "morals"
Freedom of assembly? Tell that to the truckers
Free markets? Cancel Russia and seize Canadian bank accounts
Freedom of expression? Cancel Dostoevski and the Russian ballet!
Spreading democracy? Tell that to Guatemala, Chile, and Iran
Rules based order? Iraq, Libya, Syria
The American empire is an empire like that of any other civilization in history. Do I blame it? Nope. I'm just glad more people recognize it for what it is. But with that clarity, comes more of a need of repression. And more repression is almost guaranteed.
Keep up the good work!
I don't think the "American" empire is similar to previous empires, other than perhaps the USSR. I also wouldn't refer to the USA as "American", as those people haven't run the state since (debatably) the Reagan Or HWB administrations.
The USA empire is actually quite unusual... I would characterize the British empire as being innovative in that it was a mixed military/mercantile empire.
The USA empire is a further innovation in that it is a military/mercantile/marxist empire. Marxist in the sense of using scientifically constructed media narratives to control societies.
This dynamic is something I think Darren Beattie understands... that to defend against the USA empire, a state must maintain "media sovereignty" so that it can shield it's population from USA marxist narratives. China has managed this with the great firewall... to some extent Russia and Iran have managed this as well.
But media sovereignty is very difficult to maintain in the era of internet connected smartphones in everyone's pocket. This is certainly very different than previous empires.
In other ways of course, the USA empire is similar... exploitative, etc. - of course this is your point but I still wouldn't characterize USA empire as anything other than extremely innovative.
Extremely innovative because technology permits it to be so however the basic fundamentals of empire which people choose to shield themselves from remains. America wants to run the world admittedly so but the rationale for most symps is the mythology people like to tell themselves. How else are elites going to convince a bunch of people's children to go die for the interests? Its a tale as old as time is my point. The dissecting, strategizing, innovating, etc are all just layered reasoning behind what's really just a desire to rule the world. Before it was world domination. Now its global leadership. And all these other countries who call themselves the West are just vassal states of the Empire.
As for the system, it's mercantile/martial again just like every other dominant civilization before it. Conquer new lands, expect taxes, if people resist, use force for compliance. What America gets wrong and what I think you are alluding to is that America seeks cultural infiltration as a new strategy to manufacture loyalty. Why this is a mistake is that civilizations that do so do it at their own peril. The Mongols, arguably the greatest civilization in terms of dominance, did not try and reshape every conquered lands territory. They took over, demanded leadership bend the knee to the Khan, pay taxes and everyone was free to go on about their day. Refuse and everyone in the village was killed. This is what's wrong with America's approach. It still thinks that America based on its hubris, can go into foreign lands and people will just say hey these guys are awesome. Afghanistan proved otherwise. People in other countries despise the Americans and the only people who care are the ones who are getting bribed or skimming to pay lip service. What made America believe in its own bullshit was Japan and Germany. Both those countries were so devastated by the war that they had no will to resist. And that's what America's problem is. If it were to stop pretending it's not an empire, it would do what empires do to get submission. Brutalize entire nations to the point where nobody in those areas will ever dare question who is in charge. Instead, America does bombing raids and then comes in and tries to be everyone's friend. It's all so fake and ghey
It isn’t just “mercantile/martial” again as with prior systems, that’s my point.
The Mongol empire did not need to care what it’s subjects thought, because it wasn’t a Marxist empire. The US is a Marxist empire, so it -must- care what it’s subjects think. That’s the way its system works.
It would be as if one said “why does the USSR need to care whether it’s subjects believe in the communist revolution - why can’t it just let them believe as they wish?”
Well, because when USSR subjects stopped believing in communism, the empire dissolved. It was held together (substantially) by that belief system. That’s how Marxism works!
It’s like saying why do the subjects of the Abbasid caliphate need to believe in Islam. Because it’s a Muslim empire - that’s how it works!
US empire subjects must believe in its current state religion of Marxist “liberalism” aka globohomo. Now that the USSR is gone, the US does not have enough money or military resources to control its empire without the state religion.
So I certainly agree with you on many points, but I think this distinction is important.
I would be careful about all the people who "believed" in marxism. There was an old saying in the communist countries, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. It wasn't a belief. It was a fear of the alternative. It's not marxian in the sense that people need to be converted. It's simply a way to project western power in the world. America is 250 years old. It doesn't have a history that spans centuries, and the history it does have is constantly dissected and shit on on a regular basis that no one has the will the defend it. This is why the American elites are so bad at what they do and why they feel it necessary to impose the "end of history" onto other countries. If a country that is 250 years old has to compete with other nations that have history spanning hundreds or even thousands of years, it can't overcome that asymmetry by virtue of material history. Therefore, it tries to market some end of history nonsense to completely destroy historical memories from other nations in order to not have to play that game. If the world becomes Year Zero then the only game in town is this goofy woke nonsense and no one will have territorial loyalties. With zero territorial anchors for other countries, those countries will be more prone to succumbing to the impulses of American decadence. But make no mistake, the state "religion" will be abandoned the moment American elites recognize it as a liability. Notice now that the liberals are starting to see pushback enough that challenges their positions of formal power (elections are to signify formal power where the lib knows it already owns all the institutional power) so suddenly the NYT aka the dept of information is coming out with articles like hey maybe went a little too far with this whole who needs free speech anyway. And for the communist "revolution" it was a bureaucratic revolution of managers not some ideological framework that it was sold as. I give muslims credit, they actually believe in Islam. These Western iterations of "state religion" is just some cynical obfuscation again to conceal the timeless thirst for power.
military/mercantile/marxist empire.
Brilliant.
"and also the setting for The French Connection"
If you're talking about the movie starring Gene Hackman, the setting was Marseille, not Corsica.
Talking about the heroin cookers who worked for the Sicilian Mafia
Yes it really happened about 10 years before the movie the NYPD made the big bust.
In this compilation of bad news, what stomach punched me the most was the two men and two babies story. Gross. Looking at two men displaying ultrasound photos (or, in the case of Pete and chastan buttigieg, actual newborns) like automobiles or bottles of rare liquor throws into stark relief the acquisitive, dehumanizing and woman hating impulses behind this legal baby burglary. But, as you astutely point out, the reaction from those who should really and truly know better is also extremely upsetting. Ugh. Glad you ended with the 70s book list. I was a teenager in the 70s, so several of the books listed there had a profound effect on me. Thanks for the fun nostalgia trip in the midst of the mad decline. Shine on
You’re right of course. This is why I draw a very hard line against IVF as well. I was just addressing that part of this sub stack article. Another interesting - and relevant I think - issue is that Ukraine is the surrogacy capital for Western European couples living in countries where it is outlawed.
Once we ban the pill, and remove plastics from our food and water supplies, then maybe we can consider IVF as a measure for married couples only who have difficulty conceiving.
I was 39 and my wife of less than 6 months almost 35 when she became pregnant. Conception had to have occurred on the first or second time we had unprotected sex. She was surprised, but I wasn’t: Neither of us smoke, we don’t drink heavily, my wife was neither overweight nor underweight, neither of us have any STIs; correspondingly neither of us had a lot of former sexual partners. My wife has never been on the pill for any sustained period of time and always used protection, and never had an abortion. What do you know, it’s almost like the women’s magazine narratives are total bullshit and create this fantasy where it’s supposedly normal to have difficulty conceiving (a complete biological and evolutionary impossibility, of course) and normalise giving birth later and later through stories of Hollywood actresses doing so, or, even more grotesque, adopting exotic children like they would a pet. What grinds my gears is how people and especially women are so consistently lied to about the reality of life and what human beings are as a species, and so many of them then live their lives according to these fantasies that you can do whatever you want, sleep with as many people as you want, have dangerous, reckless sex and just get it sorted with some penicillin or an abortion and think you will still be able to conceive and give birth when you are nearly 40. 🤷♂️
It’s a bill of goods for sure!
The attempts to sterilize natural processes will fail, spectacularly.
I love Substack because you find people who defy expectation in their mix of views and that always makes for very interesting articles. I appreciate the more nuanced view of the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, even if you pulled it from somewhere else. I read this article mainly because Dave Rubin caught my eye. I am ambivalent about Dave Rubin in general. I enjoy his takes when I catch them, but sometimes he feels like someone who found a niche and is exploiting it and could easily change with the wind. However, while I find your perspective on conservatives understandable (and, yes, the destruction of 16 zygotes to get two viable children causes problems for a party set on heartbeat laws and illegalizing abortion for entoptic pregnancy), as a political orphan, about the only thing that makes conservatives palatable is this blurring of the "culture war" lines in order to fight for things that were traditionally the purview of liberals, such as free speech, the rights of the working and middle class not to be turned into a serf class for the elites, the rights of parents, the right to bodily autonomy, right to privacy, right to due process, keeping our nose out of foreign conflicts, etc.
Sooooo the fundamentals of western civilization?
Yeah those. Some of those fundamentals conservatives always have espoused, but others they haven't or they have but only as they pertain to certain circumstances directly applicable to them. Most current self-labelling liberals and progressives however have thrown them all up. It's hard to find any that have held a consistent view, and most of them are accused now of being "right-wing."
Uh, no. There are very many conservatives in America, it's just that their political representation are a captive and phony, controlled and bought opposition.
This is exactly how we got Trump, and probably how we'll eventually get the Hitler or Pinochet that saves us from madness - if anything does. We're not really orphans just utterly leaderless, the numbers are far greater than any other group and cross all the lines of race and economy, mind you there's probably nothing for LGBT when sanity returns.
The destruction of 16 Zygotes will be a concern to you and your sort when you're defined as non-human as well, and 'destroyed'. Your sort isn't palatable to my sort either....
Why, you're not really human, you're just 'tissue'.
^See how it works? ^
And this is why I hesitate to support conservatives. I'm not willing to tell a bunch of women who have something that does not have organs and is just a mass of cells and can't survive on its own even with the mass of technology we have today, nothing but a glorified tumor, that that tumor has rights equivalent to their own and they have no control over whether or not they allow it to continue growing inside them into a human. There is gray area here and and you're not helping your case. You're just making me think that just like the "sane" liberal anymore is a rarity, so is the "sane" conservative, so we're all pretty screwed.
And to the people in charge, we're all just "tissue" and non-human, but while we're arguing over zygotes, they're turning us into fodder for their own machinations, and that's just how they like it.
> I'm not willing to tell a bunch of women
You're not willing to do that because you're a pussy, a nothing.
This is not about individual liberty, it's about trying to use technology to get around the facts of life to do something unnatural and horrible, and it should physically revolt you. "Muh body" is not a morality, it's a laissez-faire counterfeit. It's not "my opinion", it's just true and correct that two gay men cannot conceive. Nor is a 40 year old roastie who's had several abortions, STIs, been on the pill most of her life, and who smokes very likely to, either.
Morality is just a formalisation of the recognition that nothing in life comes without a price. To try to buy your way around that is despicable. To fail to call it out is to be complicit.
You're trying to convince someone that considers a child a tumor that they're wrong....
Why?
By all means she should eliminate any tumors that erupt within her, and herself to boot.
A zygote is a tumor until it's something more. And you're focusing on emotional appeals that rely on a shared philosophy of when life starts. It won't work on any thinking person.
A person is a tumor until it's something more.
Don't get me wrong, I'm the New Right and I like this logic.
We can use this...
No, I'm not willing to do that because I am quite literally a "pussy," meaning I have a "pussy," and having a "pussy," I have considered what would happen were I to get in the wrong situation. Would I want the chance to end a pregnancy, especially before the fetus is anything more than a fingertip's worth of cells in random order? The answer is yes. And because I would like that option, I will extend that option to other "pussies." That's called integrity and compassion and consistency. I don't tell you what to do with your body. You don't tell me what to do with mine.
Does that mean that for practical reasons, I don't think there should be limits on abortions after a certain point? No, because I want human rights to start inside the womb so we're not deciding outside the womb who has a basic right to life. Oddly enough, you and the long warred strike me as the kind of people that would need that kind of rule as you judge others much too harshly without walking in their shoes and would gladly judge some other already born humans of not worthy of breathing the same air you do.
"No, I'm not willing to do that because I am quite literally a "pussy,""
Not to be unkind, but there we have the problem.
Please read up on the literature regarding how females are much more conforming than men (In current lingo: much more prone to supporting the current thing. or in other words much more prone to holding whatever opnions and norms are the socially accepted ones), more prone to police whatever happens to be considered unacceptable social behavior or unacceptable norms
Please also check up on the literature on which sex is most influenced by emotions when forming opinions and making decisions.
I don't wan't to appear mean, but I let the truth be my guide and adjust what I think is optimal policy according to that.
It's fine to call pussy on pussies.
There's a reason we call weaklings pussies.
"Conforming" is never a word anyone would apply to most women in my life without copious use of sarcasm, but considering most of history, with very few exceptions, has been women under the thumb of men, with men literally thinking of women as property, you can forgive us for being in various stages of "finding" ourselves. Conformity for us has been a matter of survival, so give us some time.
You have it completely correct, judging all kinds here.
That's what life teaches you: Judgement.
"No, because I want human rights to start inside the womb so we're not deciding outside the womb who has a basic right to life."
This seems somewhat inconsistent....but it's probably just a thinking persons hormonal or emotional shifts...
Now, my Dear: you do not think, you fake it.
The Female relationship to logic is the same as the psychopath's relationship to emotions - you're both faking it.
This of course is one of several reasons women find psychopaths so attractive.
Why you misunderstand me !
I am no conservative - they conserve nothing.
You should hesitate to support conservatives, they don't exist except as controlled opposition fraud.
I am also not against the weak or the morally monstrous killing their own children, in fact the more dead the better. Anyone who considers their own child a tumor - by all means, do eliminate yourself from the gene pool.
In fact we're all just zygotes, and the weak need to be culled. Self culling perfect.
Especially as the majority are of course Democrats, and in truth the majority of abortions come from a troublesome 13.5% of the population.
As for helping my case, lol. What will help my case is we apply the methods and indeed precedents set by our mortal enemies against them...so state sanctioned slaughter works fine for me. I am out to convince no one, just learn from their successes and apply to our own cause.
Well, conserving American hegemony of course! You've said it yourself, the American populous needs a new Church and a new religion, but one of the Now. Imagine having a country full of islamist fundamentalist devotion tied to new world order scientific and political ideas? If such a thing were to truly come about, you would have a country advancing in fields that were before considered taboo, all the while being ready to obliterate those convicted of apostasy from the New Church. Genetic engineering, techno feudalism, surveillance state, etc. - you got it!
The neo nazi issue would be easier to discuss if the West was sane (now we can add Russia to the list of insane land masses).
It's as follows:
- best way to resist in face of a large empire is National Collectivism in some form
- in Ukraine this takes form of the badly defined, rather ambiguous National Idea, with some pagan Slavic symbolism that exists all over Europe and is not evil, just your usual folk stuff, like the Kolovrat in its endless forms
- in war you ally with the Devil as necessary, if you desire to survive
The way Azov and other similar orgs should be described is rather simple:
Nationalists have taken up arms against an invader. Their methods are the methods of war, and look extreme to cozy, fragile Westerners. The invader is just as ruthless and dangerous.
Nobody will die for liberalism and progressivism. Nobody will die to defend the polycules of US or the ghettos of Baltimore.
But people will die for a National Idea, an ideal, imperfect as it is. And if your National construct is to survive, you better sell the best National Idea version available.
The only contradictions and issues with this are in the progressive, frail, deviant West. Everyone sane understands war and survival but the West.
It's likely the support of the Azov battalion by Kolomoisky and by proxy USA was as planned to build a population that would fight to the death while also having potential to remain an "insurrectionist" movement were Russia to invade.
Nice links. Re: Nazis and Ukraine, I don’t think their tolerance of highly motivated and violent extremists is unusual in a country divided by civil war. The most ruthless killers of Republican Spain, the French resistance, the Italian resistance, the recent Balkan civil wars, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and in almost every African or Middle Eastern country under civil war tend to be criminals or extremists, often totalitarian and sectarian and willing to eliminate both the “enemy” as well as (later on) their allies in the civil war who may not be true believers. When the stakes are high it seems morality goes out the window.
Been a while since Germany or France or Italy have been in that situation. Given their history and human nature, does anyone doubt that unsavory elements would find themselves useful in a civil war? By the way- were all people even loosely associated with the Brigate Rosse or the Revolutonaere Kampf banned from public life?
Of course Ukraine’s Nazis should be condemned and Western elites are hypocrites for turning a blind eye. Meanwhile, the Biden admin is bending over backwards to cut a deal with Iran, which backs sectarian death squads in half a dozen countries.
Re: China and RMB becoming a global reserve and transactional currency. This is not the way economics works. Very difficult to be both a mercantilist country with a perennial trade surplus AND have your currency be the global trade currency. By definition, a mercantilist is going to have to invest in the countries it trades with or lend to them. The flip side of a current account surplus is a capital account deficit. This creates demand for foreign (non-Chinese) currency, not demand for Yuan, and increasing the global supply of one’s own currency is usually done by importing, not by exporting.
Which is why us losing world reserve currency and petrodollar status is good for the American people - who bear the burdens of the Mad Empire that dare not speak it's own name - despite any temporary pain. We were fine before Empire, the New Deal and WW2 drove us mad , or at least our elites mad.
We suffer the burden including the trade deficits and loss of industry.
But we suffer most of all from our mad elites.
What's the difference between an Islamist and a Muslim? There is no punchline, I'm genuinely curious. Is this yet again another irritating example of "nuance" to signal "tolerance" in order to enable us to blandly and dully view something that could involve the wrong kind of fervor? I dunno. I do know UnHerd is the very essence of the word "herd" and are raving modernists.
I see from your photo that the Corsicans have altered their symbol. Before, the eyes were covered, as the image represented a captured (and possibly beheaded) Muslim pirate-slaver – frequent visitors to Corsica, and not as tourists. I assume the Corsicans are trying to be more polite these days, but by definition the image isn't tolerant in the modern sense where certain groups – non-Christian or non-white – have no agency, and are to be presented always as victims, instead of malevolent invaders. I suppose that's why they blurred the history a bit by raising the blindfold, to smooth over certain things about Corsica/Islam in general.
Vendetta originated in Corsica because the people apparently couldn't trust the system to deal with grievances fairly. So, Corsicans resorted to a violent honor system in order to settle slights. There's an interesting but not terribly well-written book by Dorothy Carrington called The Dream Hunters of Corsica which might offer some background for curious souls.
Can you clarify what you mean when you mention the British method of 'muddling through' problems? I'm interested to hear more about it.
It usually involves letting a political crisis run out of steam by launching inquiries that take a year or two to start, and then get delayed again, and so on.
Eclectic collection this week! And no discussion of Russia’s escalation using high tech weaponry? Surprising!
In the 2000’s, Bugliosi wrote a book about prosecuting GW Bush for murder for the Iraq War. He contacted District Attorneys around the US trying to find one who would open a murder case (if a US soldier residing in that district had been killed in the war). The book was terrible but the legal concept unique.
My prediction of the week is that this is where you’ll be the Ukrainian Army collapse. The new expansion of weapon systems will demoralize the military, Mariupol will fall, and Kiev will be isolated. I project a general retreat within 1-2 weeks. Predicated that the US isn’t stupid enough to escalate to get more Ukrainians killed.
The war in Ukraine is a shameful and cynical ploy by our mad elites, and a stain on our Honor - ours mind you, not the US elites. They have none, nor shame.
It should end immediately.
The effect of the Hypersonic weapons is being hyped, no particular media hyped weapons causes a collapse in moral or the ability to fight. Being surrounded and running out of ammo, land, men and in a hopeless position DOES cause collapse.
Moreover I predict little or no significant Ukrainian 'resistance' after the peace settlement, truly their hearts are not in this ....Western hearts and the Resistance from Safe Distance 'hearts' are in this war. When and not if they see war the stomach for war will leave them....
....but the war may likely not.
I agree with your comment but to quibble there is actually weapons that causes a collapse in moral or ability to fight.
First tactical nuclear weapons in the 20 kT to 100 kT range used against medium cities (100000-500000 inhabitants) and in the 150-500 kT range used against large cities (500000+ inhabitants).
Second chemical agents weaponized ready for delivery by bombs or artillery shells or rocket lauchers - especially VX nerve agent since this does not evapourate and are quite stable and can stay in the environment for a week or two or three depending on circumstances.
Both of these kinds of weapons used in decent numbers against cities would probably quite fast destroy moral and will to fight.
I am not recommending this, just saying such weapons exists.
Unfortunately nuclear weapons seem to be very much anti-hyped by western media. Some more hype would do us a lot of good.
In a recent poll 35 % of americans said they were for (12 % were "strongly for" [Pure insanity - my comment] and 23 % were "somewhat for") "military intervention" towards russia "even if it has a risk of leading to a nuclear conflict".
Yes but 1] that's just the poll sample and 2] polls consistently show that people are answering polls without thinking it through ...I really don't believe in polls.
For me to ever again believe in a poll the pollsters would have to tell me how many flat out rejections , that is refused to answer they got...
No person aware of the situation in 2022 America would answer a poll honestly, or do anything but hang up the phone. Why make yourself a target?
I will concede that the use of nuclear weapons would change matters.
Chemical warfare is overrated and too provocative to really be profitable, since WW1 it's mainly been used on tribesmen without protective gear, which negate it's effects. It just doesn't work well enough to make it worth the heat.
Regarding the Rubin mess:
A significant issue facing right-wingers in the US is that the so-called "conservative" movement is in truth a political movement of anti-fascist liberals. This is a particular issue as many marxist techniques are designed to hack liberalism. Therefore, a political movement of "conservatives" who are in truth anti-fascist liberals is really, really, really ineffective at fighting marxist narratives.
This gets at "why do conservatives never conserve anything". They endlessly lose because they are the paper party going up against the scissors party.
It would help if we first fixed our terminology. The "regime", such as it is, is a conspiracy of narrative and process manipulators. Let's not let them control the narrative by picking our terms for us.
The "conservative" party is the liberal party. Let's consistently call them liberals. The thing they are trying to conserve is liberalism - "classical liberalism"... i.e. liberalism before the narrative manipulators got to work on it.
The so-called "liberal" party is the internationalist/marxist/progressive party. They are trying to get what they want by CLAIMING they are liberals. This scheme works because the opposition party, the "conservatives" is actually the liberal party. So "conservative" opposition is made vulnerable to internationalist/marxist/progressive goals if those goals are phrased as liberalism.
So, we should not call the "blue movement" in the US liberalism. That's what they WANT us to call it. Let's not do that.
Unfortunately, the US in a tough spot if it is being attacked by a committed group of marxists. Like, what is one to do - explain to the public that actually the right response is for a right-wing government to "restrain" bad actors in the media/academia/NGO complex? Or, will you debate the marxists and defeat them in the "marketplace of ideas"? That's what they want you to try to do! Good luck with that.
In addition, I suppose it has become apparent that in hindsight, much of the "civil rights movement" in the US is a marxist, even marxist leninist movement (with the civil rights act underpinning the leninist component). If so, the US may be in fairly severe danger.
But, at least we can frame the issue correctly and NOT call team blue liberals. They aren't liberals... they are IMPs (internationalist marxist progressives) describing themselves with liberal narratives.
Most of the people I know who vote Democrat aspire to the middle class and put signs in their immaculate front yards proclaiming they aren't racist. The Chinese, who call themselves Communist, wouldn't dream of taking in any non-Han, let alone millions, and turning themselves into a minority.
So, you're against invitro fertilization which always fertilizes more eggs than are necessary, and surrogacy which many women who can't carry a child to term use to have children. These practices have been around for decades, and I don't recall anyone but the hard-core Christian right complaining until now. They are also against gay marriage. So, I guess that makes you an anti-gay bigot. Being an intolerant bigot isn't conservative.
Excellent example of this dynamic. The ideology that conservatives are trying to conserve is liberalism. This puts them in a tough spot against extremely clever internationalist marxist progressives who are good at phrasing their goals as simply an expansion or extension of liberalism.
You'd wouldn't think the self-named "Fisted by Foucault" would call invitro "evil" only if affluent fags do it, now would you?
Conservatism is all about being bigoted, and moralistic, discriminatory and judgemental.
If you’ve read your de Maistre you’ll know that the important values are to be held dear, sacred, and celebrated, not measured up for sale or hedged about with legal limits.
Important values need a generous hinterland around them, a benefit of the doubt in their favour.
The word bigot, origins obscure, is supposed to derive from one of those rude names for a neighbouring tribe, like Welsh means Foreigner. So Bigot is a term of irreducible identity.
Archie Bunker will be relieved.
The world is full of Archie Bunkers. Try to think of yourself as Archie Bunker fending off some other Archie Bunker coming up your lawn, that has absolutely no time for your sacred values and won’t discuss it.
Who is winning this fight?
Well, I don't expect anyone to have time for my sacred values. And my most cherished sacred values are peace and love. I believe that people get to believe whatever they want as long as they don't impose their beliefs on others, and they don't start fights. You shouldn't see people doing things you don't approve of as imposing anything on you. No one is coming up your lawn with anything. You have the right to your opinions and everyone else has a right to theirs. Civil debate is fine, fighting isn't.
That world does not exist....
Interesting, so if the world is full of hate filled bigots, I am obligated to be one too? The world that exists is one where people rationalize hate. I choose not to be a lemming.
Honestly Progressivism and Liberalism and certainly Marxism ' is all about being bigoted, and moralistic, discriminatory and judgemental.'
There really isn't anything you couldn't ________ is all about being bigoted, and moralistic, discriminatory and judgemental.'
Mind you some ask for tolerance but only until they get position.
The de-dollarisation of the global economy is one of the more under-appreciated aspects of the Ukraine conflict. Ironically, Washington's weaponisation of SWIFT is likely to accelerate the search for alternatives. The more the U.S. seeks to sanction so-called bad actors by cutting off their access to SWIFT, the less the system itself will be viewed as a neutral international interbank network, rather than an instrument of arbitrary U.S. power subject to the caprices of the U.S. government.
⁋ As more and more countries begin to see SWIFT in these terms, it will inevitably induce moves to create an alternative. This will further diminish dollar liquidity, as well as enhancing liquidity for alternative currencies as they lend their support to this new system.
China is already in the process of establishing a new system: China’s Cross-Border International Payments System, its CIPS to the West’s SWIFT, now has poll position to emerge as SWIFT’s likely main competitor.
In the past, exclusion from SWIFT meant complete isolation from global markets and normal trade financing, as in the case of American sanctions against Iran. But the CIPS system, which China began to develop in 2015, is now fully operational.
CIPS is fully operational, and the Ukrainian war will expand its use and network capabilities. Note that as the euro and other major currencies have been sliding during the intensifying conflict in Ukraine, the yuan has increasingly been growing as a “safe haven” currency—a role hitherto dominated by King Dollar.
Growing awareness and attempts to work around US economic dominance don't necessarily prove US decline. In fact, they may be responses to increasing dominance. The comment above about balance of payments is instructive. China and the Petrostates can only reduce US power by accepting lower prices for their exports (ie. selling to nonaligned at a discount), or by stockpiling (refusing to sell). By accepting the West's worthless printed currency at face value in return for their products, they are then forced to buy our worthless negative yield debt to recycle the money (or import our resources, or buy our productive assets at face value). When the system crashes it hurts China and Russia more, as money flocks to the hegemon for safety. Win win win win for the West.