48 Comments
author

Please hit the like button above and use the share button to share this across social media, particularly Twitter where I am suspended at present.

Leave a comment in the mood strikes you, and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already.

Also: please check your spam filters because it seems that many of you did not receive emails in your inboxes this past week. I put out a lot of content this past week, ,so you might have missed one or two entries.

Expand full comment
author

Some of you may have missed my latest piece "Incompetence" - https://niccolo.substack.com/p/incompetence

Others may have missed the latest entry in the book club - https://niccolo.substack.com/p/fbf-book-club-the-final-pagan-generation-e38

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Spot on analysis as usual, but I greatly miss Nicolo’s shitposting. Weird to see a Balkanoid working this hard!

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022·edited Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Re Paul Mason, my understanding is that all staff at the BBC are vetted by the security services. It is reasonable to assume that anyone with a Trotskyite background on the BBC payroll would be an intelligence asset of one kind or another.

Readers interested in pursuing the media/Deep State issue should check out the work of the late Udo Ulfkotte, a journalist at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Ulfkotte spilled the beans on the extraordinary role of the CIA in micromanaging the media (Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA: A Confession from the Profession, 2019)

Expand full comment
author

Yes. Axel Springer, the largest German media company, has Atlanticism written into its corporate charter, IIRC.

Expand full comment

Its getting to the point of who isn’t working for Intel in the Press .

Expand full comment

“Deutschland 89” Philip.

I’m Irish American and biased against spies (the Irish ☘️ part of me) but its a sad life for them, eh?

The CIA or worse are the only game round and the CIA is insane, the others criminals.

Expand full comment

My own views about spooks are complex and evolving. Have known a couple of genuine members of the covert services (both of whom were thoroughly decent people), have brushed up against a few others who were almost certainly assets of one kind or another and once came under suspicion as a possible asset/operative and thereby attracted the 'eye of sauron' (not a comfortable experience, but highly instructive). A friend's father was once an agency head in the intelligence/security field.

To be fair, spies come in all shapes and sizes. The problem is that they are the police on steroids. The agencies are self-serving, the people at the top have their own weird networks and obsessions and they are thoroughly compromised in a million different ways. Also bureaucratic, inefficient, overbearing and paranoid. And don't get me started on the mischiefs of 'security vetting'!!!

The spooks who run the Anglo kleptocracies are mafiosi and need to be exposed. Putin seems OK...his Deep State faction/mafia appear public spirited and are likely better value than any of the alternatives.

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022·edited Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

The enthusiasm for the supposed mass graves in Canada is reflective of the fashion amongst left-whites to find any example they can of past misdeeds. It's the same in every country: in the US, slavery; in the UK and France, empire; in Germany, WWII; in Sweden, Swedish iron that may or may not have been used on slave ships (probably the most absurd example I've seen). The power structure benefits by removing moral legitimacy from the heritage population, thereby removing resistance to mass immigration and clearing the way for various social engineering projects. NPCs benefit by the opportunity to farm dopamine via virtue signals, and by having a proximate excuse for the cultural revolution they've been recruited for. At no point is it necessary that any of it be true; it can be, but truth or falsity is orthogonal to requirements.

Expand full comment
author

National Masochism to salve an unnecessarily guilty conscience. What a psyop!

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022·edited Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

False narratives are especially fit for purpose - the combined ethical, epistemic and political compromisation of those who go along with the narrative is amplified by the transparent dishonesty of it all. It is one thing to go along with an honest mistake, but to be compromised by a transparent lie is extra-dispiriting. Sociopathic malignant narcissists like Trudeau relish the opportunity to degrade those who buy into the bullshit. It provides them with a thrill that they value. Note well that the passion for historical accounting never extends to common honesty where it might embarrass the powerful or well-connected, for example, Trudeau's father (assuming that Pierre T was indeed Justin's father) was a teenage fan of Petain and Hitler who discovered the virtues of democracy after Stalingrad.

Expand full comment

Indeed. Going along with an obvious deception arouses self-disgust, corroding self-worth and making the collaborator that much easier to control. This is probably true at a hormonal level - humiliation, particularly if one participates in one's own humiliation, lowers testosterone.

As for those who don't even bother to dig, who don't realize or won't realize that their worldview is based on a knot of contradictory deceptions, their ability to use logic is destroyed, and their minds become putty in the hands of the malignant narcissists who puppeteer them.

Expand full comment

John, you have touched on an essential aspect...logic. The reaction of the woke to objections or questions gets especially vigorous, sometimes explosively so, if you apply formal logic or any approach derived from disciplined thought or inquiry. The solution is encourage youngsters to pay attention to formal logic, formal debating, evidence based research of all kinds. These won't win any arguments with the woke, but they boost the cognitive equivalent if the immune system.

Expand full comment

The centrality and growing excesses of collective shaming indicates a decisive shift towards the communalism and tribalism of Western and Southern Asia. The white identitarians are increasingly buying into this worldview, a perfect example of degradation via mimetic rivalry.

Western cultures are especially vulnerable because the constitutive traditions of the West involve explicit collective and individual self-criticism (the Greek interest in the critical examination of received ideas and religious beliefs, the Roman fascination with satirising social evils and the Biblical exhortation to self-incrimination and the acceptance of guilt for sin).

Expand full comment

That tradition of self-critique also acts as a corrective factor. When an irrational ideology spreads, it can indeed do so by exploiting that tradition - this has happened many times in history. But it soon finds itself under assault by the very instinct for critique that enabled its rise in the first place. This is already happening to wokeism, and has been for years now.

Expand full comment

What are your thoughts on this interview from Tablet? https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/three-blind-kings-edward-luttwak

Expand full comment
author

I take issue with his assessment that the Russian invasion was a disaster. I like the bit about nicotine, and he's right re: CIA and lack of HUMINT, something that may others have been calling out for some time now, including Schindler.

Actual, genuine plebiscites in the Donbass are now impossible due to too much blood being spilled. Beyond that, Kherson and large parts of Zaporhizhia are lost to Ukraine as well.

Expand full comment

One must always remember with Luttwak “First of all always get paid.” His books are brilliant, but if he’s getting paid becomes a bit of a flack. The time for plebiscites has passed, it could have been done before blood spilt not after.

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

You might be confusing cynicism with a BS detector. While I agree that there is a entertainingly high level of cynicism amongst people in E Europe/Balkans/Russia, the history of the last century (and even recent decades) shows they are quite willing to embrace BS narratives. The reality is that envy, vindictiveness, group identity, and a desire for scapegoats (or an interest in putting people in their place) can overwhelm any sort of cynicism-driven BS detector (and has done).

Great piece on the Canadian graves and nice take on the NGO infighting, tks

Expand full comment
founding
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

“a position filled by a guy who is only there to make racist jokes in the office.”

Hey if any left wing groups read this and are hiring; I know just about every Jew joke their is!

Expand full comment

I posted here appointing a boor as the EO rep works, my mil unit did it and no problems.

Mind you the Sexual abuse person needs to be closely vetted or a predator takes the job, the boor is not a problem, the sexual abuser who has the victims come to him is...

I’m being literal and serious.

Expand full comment

Will the infighting among SJWs signal the end for breadtubers?

Expand full comment

Hiring toxic people as the EO rep.

This is the answer, I’ve seen it done in the military. The EO/Sex Harassment Rep should be the closest thing to Andrew Dice Clay’s Diceman character you can find, say a boorish fat Italian guy from Staten Island who says “F-ck you mother “ when he gets miffed, or a sexist “if you eat P_ssy you’re gay” Puerto Rican as the guy after him. This was 2 guys in a row. It worked. Nobody bothered us.

“Here you go Brigade - all IN”

Go ahead and complain.

True story. Ok, its New Jersey but who knows better the Democrats games?

Its effective.

Mind you a few years later we met a flat out pedo sex predator running the program at Ft B---- in Texas, really creepy. But not our problem, its their problem.

“Maybe the answer is in hiring a few people who are so toxic that they scare off these potential troublemakers so that these groups can turn back to actually trying to achieve what they set out to do in the first place? Think about it: a position filled by a guy who is only there to make racist jokes in the office. Is this a feasible solution to the problem plaguing these progressive organizations?”

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022·edited Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I think you and your readers will appreciate this dystopic piece:

https://palladiummag.com/2022/06/13/stanfords-war-on-social-life/

Expand full comment
author

I had that article ready to use today, but the one from The Intercept was just too good and I didn't want to share two similar pieces.

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

"Patton Oswalt told me he thinks the worst part is the hypocrisy. I disagree. I think the worst part is the..."

https://thepostmillennial.com/woke-teacher-busted-for-grooming-13-year-old-sexually-assaulting-him-on-video

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I think it'll be interesting to see if the hyper-progressive woke culture can sustain itself. You seem to believe that it can, which is fair enough given how fanatic the movement is, but Freddie DeBoer has suggested that the movement is entirely too unpleasant and hostile to keep people attached in the long term.

Expand full comment
Jun 21, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I dont think they can endure.

Its a hyper cannibalistic, toxic environment full of mentally unbalanced individuals, that in normal times would be living in an asylum for the insane, or heavily sedated in their childhood room , living with mommy and daddy.

As I wrote, these people cannot have mirrors in their houses.

For them, everyone is sexist, ableist, racist.

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

What is your view on the French situation? Do you think the new united left under Melenchon will collapse after its victory, leading to disillusionment that will increase support for the radical right, or do you think the French left will steal their thunder and become dominant?

Also post new twitter @ and feet.

Expand full comment
author

France is in a state of serious stagnation where no reform, whether political or economic, can happen due to how ossified the system is. For decades now, it's been a case of kicking the can down the road. Nothing significant gets done.

Also: no new Twitter at the moment.

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I agree that the word torpor adequately reflects the state of European politics in general rn. But that creates chances for the proactive. One of the most annoying things about RW politics in the EU is the amount of lost chances due to infighting and stupidity, when often they only had to shoot at an open goal. It is very blackpilling. I genuinely have no idea what is going to happen over the next 30 years, except that if we continue down this road it will just lead to progressive decay. How do you deal with it?

Also: I am still not seeing feet

Expand full comment
author

Europe has handed over much of its sovereignty to the USA this year and we are fucked for the time being unless things take a serious nosedive economically, which is a strong possibility.

*check my wikifeet page

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022·edited Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Yeah......

As an European I have always believed that if only Europe got its act together, we could regain much of our former prominence. Increasingly I now see that barring some Deus Ex Machina to get our shit together, we'll simply go out with a whimper. A serious nosedive such as you believe possible might be that, but it could (and IMHO likely would) just lead to faster entropy and progressive dominance (should we simply not rename progressivism to entropism? It would be more accurate...). To paraphrase a certain meme, the old world is dying and nobody's pregnant with the new.

Expand full comment
author

I note that you didn't like my wikifeet page.

Expand full comment
Jun 18, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Poast link

Expand full comment

On the fate of leftists, spies and aging Trots - Sr Soldo have you seen “Deutschland 83-86-89” 3 seasons, was on Amazon now on Hulu. Brilliant series. D L 1989 and the fate of former leftists etc is particularly instructive- the series is about the last years of the DDR and the Old East along with West Germany, told through the prism of DDR spies (of course) . Twas a sad fate.

Expand full comment
author

Absolutely garbage series. They shoehorned so many of today's "proper" mores to totally kill what could have been a great show.

Expand full comment
Jun 19, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

It's not a white person problem that the US and the Anglosphere has. It's a problem of self-hating whites, who are overwhelmingly progressive. (I was not born in the US.)

Put differently, the problem is not working class "rage", but white college-degree holding white guilt and the people who make fortunes off of them.

You know, nor matter where you look, the effect of DEI/Wokeness is invariably to dumb down the joint and make it incompetent. I wonder when corporate leaders, lawyers, managers and corporations will start to feel the effect of that.

I doubt government and academia ever will as there is no market measure for them....unless people stop going to college. Or something like that.

Expand full comment
author

"It's not a white person problem that the US and the Anglosphere has. It's a problem of self-hating whites, who are overwhelmingly progressive."

You say tomato, I say tomato.

Expand full comment
Jun 21, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

more like, the rot in the saladette tomato variety is spoiling the whole crop

Expand full comment