In all of the big institutional scandals, there is always a question that rarely gets addressed and that is, how did it go on for so long? By the time the thing starts to become public, the number of people involved, either actively or passively, has reached a point where it became impossible to hide. In some cases, the issue at the heart of the scandal just became a normal thing to the people inside the institution. For some mysterious reason, no one raised the alarm until much too late.
The best example of this is the Catholic Church scandal. By the time the story of the homosexual priests was public, the Church was infested with them. The lavender mafia had taken over whole orders. The number of pederasts had reached a point where moving them around the system was just a part of the administration. As people started asking questions and making claims, the system rallied to defend itself, without much thought about what it was defending. The corruption was systemic.
Something similar protected Jewish perverts like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein from being exposed. In both cases, lots of people knew these men were involved in degenerate activities, but no one dared say it publicly. In the case of Weinstein, the excuse was that outing him would be bad for the career. In the case of Epstein, the excuse was he had dirt on powerful people. No one knows if that is true. It’s one of those just-so answers to avoid having to think much about it.
It seems that corruption has a dynamic that starts with the first flexing of the rules that are supposed to control the institution. Somewhere along the line, it becomes expedient to overlook some minor infraction. Like a cancer, the exception making starts to spread through the system. At first, a small number of people are breaking rules and tolerating the rule breaking. As each new person learns of the practice, he is a smaller minority relative to the set of rule breakers. Thus he is less inclined to oppose it.
At first it is a handful of senior people, for example, involved in some sort of minor shenanigans that violates the spirit of the rules. The first person to learn of it is faced with taking on that cabal of senior people. Alternatively, the rule breakers are junior people, but their bosses look the other way, because they have other political interests or they are just too lazy to address it. Either way, the potential whistle blower is always outnumbered. That alone is often enough of a discouragement.
At some point, another dynamic kicks in. Those who cannot tolerate the corruption, but lack the courage to do anything about it, are boiled off. They move on, leaving behind a mix of cowards and corrupt. Of course, the corrupt flock to corruption, so the institution becomes a magnate for the type who like rule breaking. Before long, you go from a system where rule breaking is not tolerated and the rule breakers fear exposure, to a system where rule breaking is normalized and rule enforcers fear exposure.
The best example of this is the rotten police precinct. In every case, the corruption begins with a small number of cops. The good cops try to do something about it, but run into lazy or fearful superiors, who refuse to address the issue. Those cops either move on or find a way to justify their silence. Other cops either tacitly support the bad cops or justify their willful blindness in some way. Before long, the rotten precinct becomes an organism with its own immune system and defense mechanisms.
Put another way, the corrupt organization or system becomes too corrupt to fail, as everyone has some reason to protect it. For some at the heart of the corruption, the reason is obvious, but all around them are people who fear being shamed for having said nothing or fear being implicated for having looked the other way. The fallacy of the sunk cost becomes an operating principle. Everyone assumes there can be no turning back, so the corruption accelerates until eventually it does collapse.
This dynamic of corruption is something to consider when trying to sort out the many scandals engulfing Washington. For eight years, the media was celebrating the fact that there were no major scandals under Obama. They never said it, but there were no big scandals under Bush. The Scooter Libby stuff was the only thing that approached major scandal status and that was only because the press was bored. Otherwise, it was just eight years of partisan howling about trivial matters.
Yet, Trump hits town and the city is hit with a tsunami of front page scandals. The fact that most are hoaxes and the rest are scandals those hoaxes are intend to obscure, suggests something about the system. It sees Trump as not only a foreign body, but a threat by reason of being a foreign body. He’s the new precinct captain taking over a rotten precinct or the new bishop with a reputation for piety. The defense mechanism of the corrupt organization just assumes virtue is a vice that must be expelled.
This would explain why the whole system seems to have reorganized itself to defend even the pipsqueaks in the system. Andrew McCabe should be a perfect fall guy, as he is high profile enough to be a nice trophy, but not so high up as to be important to anyone in politics. Yet, he has been funneled millions of dollars by the system, through jobs and speaking fees. His legal defense fund quickly filled up with millions of dollars from Washington lobbyists. The system wants him safe.
Something similar is happening with the fake whistle blower story. The system saw that Trump people were looking into the Biden stuff. Instinctively the system responds with the fake whistle blower, so the democrats can bellow about impeachment, rather than defend Joe Biden. Why not just let this very corrupt old man go down in flames so Warren can be the nominee? The thoroughly corrupt organization lacks the ability to sacrifice any part of itself, so it instinctively defends the whole.
This video of Rudy Giuliani talking about the Biden corruption is interesting for a number of reasons. One is the level of corruption. It does appear China bought Joe Biden, while he was Vice President. Putting that aside, Giuliani seems to be realizing, as he is talking, that Washington is just like the organized crime he prosecuted back when he was making a name for himself in New York. It is an organism whose purpose, in addition to the corruption, is to defend itself against exposure.
Back during the mortgage crisis, the expression “too big to fail” became a catchphrase for justifying government support for the banks. Something similar is at work in Washington, in that it is too corrupt to fail. It’s not that so many people depend on politics as usual. It’s that the graft and corruption is so wide spread, no one thinks they can afford even a little exposure. The business of Washington is now concealing the fact it is thoroughly rotten. The business of the empire is organized crime.
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I’m reading a book called Sorry, Wrong Number by John Brignell. He was a scientist and engineer in the UK for his whole career and retired early to write this book in 2000 about the misuse of statistics and numbers by Academia and the media that are used to manipulate the populace. I’m going to quote something from the very beginning of the book. “I knew things were pretty bad out there but the sheer extent of deliberate cold-blooded abuse shook me” His second book, The epidemiologist have they got the scares for you! Is much angrier. I highly recommend… Read more »
Since Trotsky’s literal granddaughter heads the NIH, the second book is certainly important!
The “over-vaccination now, over-vaccination forever!” crowd is a good example of today’s Z-post about instinctive defense.
An authority introduces some policy, and sometimes it takes and is immediately enshrined. Not because people are stupid (I don’t think they are, being quite stupid myself), but because we don’t have time to sort out the 1,001 competing claims.
I’m in the ‘too much of a good thing’ and ‘first, do no harm’ camps, so I suspect everything we’re told.
So Trump is Serpico. So be it as it seems to many to be what you say here, that this is pretty much analogous to mafia rule and corrupt police.
The chutzpah on display by Trump’s enemies is astounding , even now. To be the one complicit in major graft, crime, and shakedowns of foreign governments and to somehow turn it all back on Trump is really hard to believe. Either they are really scared or feel extremely confident in their power and rule.
I’m not a 4-D chess guy, but there seems to be a counter intel program running inside the White House. A month ago we had the personal secretary outed as a leaker. She was caught leaking fake intelligence on Trump that was planted in her head by someone in the White House. It was an obvious trap. Last year, something similar happened with James Wolfe, the head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee. Someone at DOJ gave him fake information that he leaked to the Washington Post. Now we have this Ukraine story. The major papers were reporting, allegedly… Read more »
I wonder what the normie reaction will be to all this? After the Russian hoax, and the Epstein “suicide”, will this move the needle at all? By the way, the perfidy of the NeverTrumpers is on full display here. What vile creatures they are…
Normies have felt no pain yet, and nothing happens until they do.
Carson King is certainly feeling some pain. Normies are now becoming targets of the cancel culture.
Normies, cucks, and sheeple will feel no pain until there is a major economic reset. As long as these clueless idiots have their Pepsi, Nacho Cheese Doritos, Happy Meals for their little brats, and other entertainments, NOTHING and I mean NOTHING will happen. I will no go bang my head against a block wall.
I certainly hope Carson King will be a Redpilling Moment in the same way George Zimmerman was.
The normies are retarded. No hope for them. Epstein somehow loses his life (or did he) in a facility that has never had a suicide in it’s 40 year history. Then, the recording media for the camera pointed at his cell door just happens to have been damaged and is not usable. Please.
You’re wrong. ..USA Today: WASHINGTON – When accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself while awaiting trial this month, it was the first recorded suicide at Manhattan’s federal detention center in 13 years.
And of course the Deep State enabler, the Washington ComPost, couldn’t be wrong now, could they ? Nor deceptive….eh ?
Trump needed to kick off the counter-intel program on day zero. I don’t think he knew his team was infected from the very beginning. Why would he?
Whoever ran his transition put the word out through the people vetting “Plum Book” applications for open positions that they only wanted “Trump people” — aka, “loyalists.” This meant that a lot of younger people who’d worked for standard-issue Republicans were frozen out at the outset when they applied for mid-level policy positions. The upsetting thing, of course, is that those doing the hiring were anything but Trump loyalists, and ended up leaving in place a stay-behind Gladio army dedicated to Barry and Hillary, all the while stabbing Trump in the back 50 times a day themselves (Priebus and others).… Read more »
The favoritist daughter and the son-in-law appear to be the chink in the armor of team Trump.
Team Trump’s “armor” is made entirely of chinks.
And by that I don’t mean the Han, that would actually be an improvement.
Hell, it’s absurd to even speak of “team Trump” — he hasn’t got a team, never has.
There was definitely some strange things in the transition team. Chris Christie was supposed to run it then Pence got him fired and ran it himself, poorly. Pence seems to have had a hand in getting Flynn fired and Sessions in at AG – which makes me deeply suspicious.
Be careful.
People have been fired for racist comments like that.
https://gothamist.com/news/chink-in-the-armor-fallout-fired-espn-employee-writes-long-apology
I agree. Pence is like that dick, Cheyney. His search for the perfect VP candidate for Bush the Lesser could produce only one name. His own.
at least that is the way they are portrayed.
Dick Cheney before he dicks you!
Trump is his own counter intel program. One random example. Kelly Ann Conway. Her husband George is tweeting the worst things you can say about Trump, yet Kelly Ann keeps her job. It’s played off that this is one of those polar opposite couples in politics. Yet the relationship between a husband and wife is far closer and more intimate than with any employer, even if that employer is the President. Months from now Trump will be shocked that this woman is actually undermining him. He should have dragged her bony ass into his office and said, “Kelly, you’re fired,… Read more »
They are pointing to Trump wanting to investigate them and using his own words — essentially, “I’m hitting back now” — as the prima facie evidence for removing him from office. They want the public to do their work for them: “Trump’s going to punish us,” they’re saying — “punish him first.” All legal, all within the power of the executive branch — as if that matters at this point. Seems to me like we’re reaching a terminus. If Trump can’t get anyone below him to start exacting justice for the last 2.5 years (Bagpipes Barr, for example) then he… Read more »
With regards to yesterday’s Butterfield column, it was young Hillary who made her bones with the “18 missing minutes”, wasn’t it?
One of the Hildebeast’s colleagues on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate probe was none other than the odious Bill Weld.
Weld is a fruitcake. Absolutely bonkers in the Linc Chaffee mold. That’s why they never keep him on air for very long.
Too bad for us that John Silber — who almost beat him in 1990 for governor in Mass — couldn’t keep his temper in check for another few weeks. We would’ve been spared this incompetent old pothead.
Yep. The Clintons and their entourage have the offensive playbook on impeachment (from Watergate) and the defensive playbook (from 1998-1999). This is all going to follow the protocols established in those manuals.
At this point it should be obvious to even the most dim witted that the intel agencies are ran by democrats/neocons and cannot be trusted. Yet we are to take their word explicitly that Iran was behind the attack on the KSA oil processing facility and that Iran imperials the world with their nuclear weapons program. Well all that could be true but how do we know? More importantly how does the President know? Perhaps the CIA could show Trump the satellite photos of the nuclear weapons Iran is producing. Oh wait. They did that in Iraq almost forgot. Like… Read more »
The transformation of the media has allowed the corruption to go unchecked. The media used to be left-wing hacks, but now….it goes way beyond that. And now we have joint FBI-Google entities like CrowdStrike who seems to exist to obscure the data trail of the corruption…
In my NormieCon days, I would look around and think “Why is this happening?!?!?!”
A few redpills later, I just see Jews acting in a way that advances their in-group interests. I don’t like it any better, but at least it makes sense now.
Good shot. Crowdstrike is the heart, it’s at the center of the web.
The trouble is, in the shitstorm the Powers That Be have created, you could find the Crowdstrike evidence that it was Seth Rich not the Russians, that Google is a pawn of the Chinese, that Facebook wants you dead, all 33,000 of Hillary’s purged classified e-mails, all of the graft and theft associated with the Clinton Foundation, and even that Pizzagate is real, and the powers will shrug and say “so what”, and the normies will march along, NPC style. It doesn’t matter, people. The world is not just and it is not fair. Sorry, I am being ranty.
Yeah, seeing that the media has zero independence and zero integrity has really been an eye-opener for me. Now I think of the establishment as “Cathedral FC” (= Football Club). They’re all on the same team, playing for the same goal. Media organizations are the strikers, Jewish billionaires are the central midfielders, Antifa is the left winger, the educational establishment is the right winger, shitlib normy is the left back, brainwashed NPC student is the right back, the FBI and CIA are the two central backs, and the left-wing parties are the goalkeeper. They’re all working together, coordinating their attacks.… Read more »
Every now and then, like today for example, I am reminded of the Christian’s most important insight: we are a sinful, fallen, evil race. Thanks Z.
No one was the slightest interested in the illegality of son’s portfolio – until it could be used to break someone else’s career.
That’s where we’re at now. Illegality is of no interest unless it is useful as a tool for advancement.
The Biden stuff is pure corruption, but what’s also going on is agents, politicians and media doing illegal things and covering it up for the cause that they believe in. And if they get a bit of kickback for their efforts all the better.
They are discarding the rules not just because they are corrupt but because they believe that we are evil and the rules don’t apply to evil people. It’s like how people who don’t believe in the death penalty say that, yes, if they could go back in time, they would kill Hitler in 1932.
Psychology has a very useful concept, “moral licensing.” It (roughly) means that if you think you’re good, it gives you a license to be bad.
Political leftism institutionalizes pathological moral licensing. They work so hard to convince themselves that they’re good–and that, therefore, nothing they do is bad.
Convincing yourself that your viciousness is virtue–that way lies destruction without end.
“Political leftism institutionalizes pathological moral licensing. They work so hard to convince themselves that they’re good–and that, therefore, nothing they do is bad.” This is a key insight. But I would suggest that “Leftism” is not the root, RESENTMENT is. Leftism is based in huge part on resentment. Postmodernism views the world as composed of only oppressors and oppressed, and oppression leads to suffering which leads to resentment. Similarly, if your cultural touchstones and religious ceremonies are based on tales of suffering and victimhood (from Pharaoh through Hitler, and even today, as we speak!) then you are primed for resentment.… Read more »
Mike;
Agree about resentment. There’s a good reason why prohibition of envy and covetousness is included in the Ten Commandments.
Years of multiculturalism invariably led to cognitive dissonance. In response they’ve simply discarded all the rules. Where there are no rules, there are no hypocrites. Voila! All neanderthals believe in principles but fall short of them, thus they are hypocrites. Progressives on the other hand believe in nothing, which makes them enlightened.
(One faction of) the Ukrainians were just bribing Obama and Biden, when they hired Biden’s son. Another faction wanted to investigate those ties. Biden called them and said .. Drop the investigation, or we withhold money we’ve earmarked for you. They said ..Who authorized you?.. Biden says ..Call Obama ask him. Now Trump comes in and says .. Why don’t you reopen those investigations? The media is portraying this as Trump trying to get Ukraine to influence the next election; actually he is just trying to help Ukraine bring (their) people to justice, as well as having them help us… Read more »
It’s a perpetual source of amusement to me that people always want to travel back in time and murder Baby Hitler, thinking they’d save the world.
It never occurs to them that they might wind up instead with Much More Competent Alternative Hitler, who would be capable of actually conquering the world and not screwing it up with zany decisions.
Of course, if you REALLY wanted to prevent WWII, you’d travel back in time and murder Baby Churchill instead.
The Soviet Union was an example of this insidious type of cancerous corruption taking hold on a national scale, and it’s happening again right here right now in accelerating slow motion. An actual palace coup against a duly elected president has been playing out over nearly 3 years now, and not one single Bad Guy has even been arrested, let alone prosecuted, or held to account. The rule of law is dead. A new paradigm is needed. The cohort of honest citizens is shrinking fast. We either reverse course soon or bottom out and rebuild from the ashes.
We’re not going to reverse course. The demographics won’t allow it. What’s more, even within the whites, the Goodwhites and Deplorable Whites are reaching the “divorce” stage where we’re tired of arguing with each other and just want out.
Agreed. But up above, The Babe made an excellent point about moral licensing. Their will be no peaceful divorce. Once you license one immorality, licensing bigger ones gets easier and easier. The left has weaponized and industrialized moral licensing; I will bet Weinstein and Epstein are the tip of the scandal iceberg, and that the really big stuff is still securely submerged. The monsters in those depths need not only our productivity, they need us to ensure a continuous supply of it because they can’t furnish it themselves. I’m guessing the left with it’s diverse and vibrant masses will have… Read more »
The left understands political theater. They love hearings, for example, because they make people look guilty. Normies just think “ooh, some guy sat in front of a bunch of angry judges. He must have done something bad. He must be bad.”
If there are any good guys left at all, they have to perpwalk some of these coup-plotters in orange jumpsuits, in order to shatter their halo in front of the public.
Once more, the Alinsky Rule (always accuse your opponent of what YOU are doing) is verified. Remember two days ago, when the Dems were claiming that the transcript showed Trump using code, “like the mob”? I’m still scared to make it an iron clad rule for understanding everything, but the amount of times applying the Rule (assume they are doing what they’re accusing others of doing) is remarkable. BTW, read In the Closet of the Vatican. The rule there is: the more sternly, openly, violently anti-homosexual a bishop or cardinal, the more openly flaming behind the scenes. The homophobia isn’t… Read more »
Agree on the analogy to the Catholic Church. Had several colleagues that managed the abuse litigation against various dioceses well before this became regular headline news. The church was adept at keeping a “cell” structure that even rope-a-doped the insurers that were obliged to defend them from ever seeing the full picture. Priests “disappeared” when depositions needed to be taken, records “disappeared” or couldn’t be found, parishioners were “advised” not to speak to defense counsel….was virtually impossible to put together a complete picture even at the parish level. But rather like bird flocking, this was simply a natural and unconscious… Read more »
Very interesting topic again today. It raises for me the classic fear and desire dynamic that you find everywhere in philosophy and mythological storytelling of the nature of man, the nature of the finite mind.
If you lose your center, that place where you are operating in the world without fear or desire, you are doomed.
Sam, how pervasive do you think priestly pederasty was?
Do you doubt that the ((( media ))) exaggerated its prevalence?
Do you doubt that the ((( media ))) has long had a hard-on for the Catholic church?
Do you doubt that the ((( media ))) almost always refuses to distinguish pedophilia from hebephilia and ephebophilia with regards to allegations lodged against Catholic priests?
That there is and has been corruption in the Catholic church is one thing; the frequency of heterosexual prelates sodomizing six and seven year olds is another. The former is unassailable, the latter, rare.
Libertymike, the MSM also refuses to place the blame where it belongs, homosexual predation in the church. Write ups are also such that one is lead to believe heterosexual predation is at least as common as homosexual predation. The church has a homosexual priest problem, yet some of my relatives (normies) will claim that the solution is to allow priests to marry, rather than require celibate service.
Agreed.
Whether father sodomized a six year old or pinched the rear end of a 17 year old parish youth counselor at the annual summer parish outing, he was not jerking off to pin-ups of Rita Hayworth.
Managing this stuff wasn’t my side of the business. But knew the attorneys and litigation specialists that ran these cases well—mostly homosexual—and from the volume and breadth of cases, pretty damned pervasive. And this was before the dam broke on reporting. And before insurers added “abuse and molestation” exclusions, so there was an obligation to, at minimum defend under reservation of rights. One funny thing, a colleague looked at the association of Reformed synagogues (UHCC), their data was almost exclusively allegations of rabbis banging the neglected wives of the congregants.
Saml; Interesting in a bad way because it indicates active deception directed from above: At the top even. Ordinary compartmentalization would be penetrable once the crooked cell (crooked precinct, etc.) is identified. The process Z-man describes well explains how an organizational compartment can come to be corrupted, even in an otherwise honest organization. The big question is how corruption jumps the barriers, given that the usual rivalries between factions would ordinarily tend to lead to rivals gleefully denouncing the miscreants to the top. And, independent reporting chains to the top are a feature of honest organizations as well. People who… Read more »
Great points made here, all accurate. It’s why I’m so cynical about reform; at some point corrupt organizations usually reach a top-dead-center, after which reform is impossible because they’re schizophrenic and completely immune to moral tenets. It’s why the likes of Trump or Tulsi Gabbard, well-meaning as they may be, either have no effect or become a part of the problem. It’s always alarming to me when our “good guy” politicians (or priests, or SES-level bureaucrats) never grasp that they’re role playing Don Quixote. Ideally, fraud and sleaze operate on the fringes of government and power centers. What’s different now… Read more »
In “The Republic,” Plato discussed his ideal society and then the four imperfect societies and how one degenerates into the next: Timarchy (rule by an honor- and glory-loving military elite), followed by a plutocracy (rule by money-grubbing rich), then a democracy (rule by the many obsessed with equality, freedom and a tolerance borne of indifference) and finally the the worst of all, a tyranny (rule by one man, with the central principle of lust; people are slaves to their passions). Plato pointed out that the democratic man still had a few moral scruples and at times suffered from a bad… Read more »
Yes. I think Machiavelli thought through the cycles of government as well, probably standing on the shoulders of Plato. It takes an observant people to notice these trends … that’s why I think we Americans are so ruthlessly propagandized and purposefully uneducated. Been awhile since I read this but tyranny usually descends into an even bloodier period of anarchy, correct? A lot of us hope for a quick renewal built on the ashes of fallen empire, but I’m not sure that’s ever happened.
Anarchy – Local warlords take control? Also, the possibility of foreign conquest. A population may either be indifferent to or hate their rulers so they won’t fight for their country. Even foreign conquest might be seen as preferable.
Ris;
If the history of China is any guide, sooner or later one of the warlords subdues the rest and a new dynasty is born. No doubt the previous elite got shortened by a head and the new emperors’ able deputies were installed, starting the cycle over again. Then the corruption gradually see[s in again after a generation or two.
Those who cannot tolerate the corruption, but lack the courage to do anything about it, are boiled off.
I think the wishful thinking is that some swamp creature will finally have the morals and courage to stand up and blow this thing wide open.
The really blackpilling thought is that, of the dozens or hundreds of people who have enough information to do it, there might not be a single one with the integrity to go public, and the rot will just go on.
“The really blackpilling thought is that, of the dozens or hundreds of people who have enough information to do it, there might not be a single one with the integrity to go public, and the rot will just go on.”
Or maybe they don’t want to suffer the same fate as Seth Rich.
You think it’s painless being a whistle blower? You got another thing coming darling. It’s not. It’s a life changing experience and for the worse in many cases. This is why it’s so hard to get insiders to come forward to give information.
Chances are you are going to be black balled and if you manage to keep your current job, you’ll be ostracized and eventually forced to quit no matter what you do.
Sean Hannity has said over and over again that 99% of the FBI was honest and that only the top 1% was corrupt. One day, he was corrected by a guest, who said it was 15-20% and the second guest agreed. Either way, whatever opinions that FBI personnel had about the actions of their superiors, they kept their mouths shut because they valued their jobs and pensions more than law and morality.
The difference between an amoral careerist like Peter Strzok and the average FBI agent is that Strzok was actively corrupt and the other passive.
I think it is more they value their lives. The FBI imbedded leadership would not hesitate to Seth Rich someone, or their family. Whether or not it is really true, if the rank and file believe it, it may as well be true.
Babe, I think you’re right that there are many people who could go public but won’t. Even if someone who had all the info. exposed the corruption in intricate detail, I don’t know if it would make any difference. TPTB including the media would just ignore it or turn it into something about Trump and most ordinary people would go along with it.
It’s blindingly obvious in the Ukraine thing that Biden and his son are totally corrupt, but somehow that means Trump should be impeached.
It’s a cliche to point out that the Cloud People are disconnected from the Dirt People, but they are disconnected from the very idea of the United States or any other Western country. They’re citizens of the world which in practice means they’re citizens of no country. Loyal only to, at most, their families. China bought Joe Biden – that’s beyond corruption, that’s treason. Google opened an AI lab in Beijing in 2017 and ended its AI contract with the Pentagon in 2018. AI developed in China will go to their military. We get into a war and the Cloud… Read more »
When the USSR fell, China was lifted up as Plan B.
What happened with the Cloud People is beyond corruption. They have become so socially and economically isolated from the rest of the country as to be a hostile alien species. They have no idea what goes on outside of their bubble world, nothing. They just know that we are a impediment to them and their agenda so we have to go.
Nor will they allow us a peaceful separation from them either. They’ve made it clear they either want us dead or in camps.
The Chinese execute INCONVENIENTLY corrupt politicians.
Their system is no less corrupt than ours. They just have no compunctions about finding a scapegoat (who may or may not actually be guilty) and shooting him in the head.
Corruption is only part of the issue.
A lot of systems are corrupt, but it’s one thing parasitically exploit a population and it’s quite another to try really hard to destroy them, when they’re not even rebelling.
The system ruling us is top tier when it comes to badness.
It’s been pointed out here that our ruling class is acting like foreign colonists. They despise the great mass of Dirt People and hate, HATE the deplorables. I guess they see as as an impediment to their plans simply by voting in someone like Pres. Trump.
“you can never be too cynical” Avoid the urge to think of politicians as wide eyed innocents. Guliani and Trump represent a lesser faction within the greater organized crime network. While electoral politics is largely fake, there is still internal politics within the deep state / organized crime network. The faction running Trump sought to use unorthodox tactics (cynical, exploitative, race-hustling false-populism) to “cut in line” and slightly adjust internal Imperial policy to favor Zionism even more than it already did. However, by using tactics that went beyond mere dog-whistling, into open race-hustling, they unwittingly (or semi-unwittingly) triggered the hive’s… Read more »
Let me know what brand of crack you are on Sparky
It was Trump, not Obama who pardoned Sholom Rubashkin
There is something about the SIZE of gov’t which makes it devolve into these corrupt entities. During the past 40 years, the NYC City Council has grown to 51 members, previously it was a much smaller body. One consequence of having such a large body is that once it leans too much towards one political party (Dems in NYC’s case), it becomes irreversibly SINGLE party. In 50 years, the number of municipal employees has grown from 100k to 300k. In just the past 20 years the annual budget has mushroomed from $25billion to $95billion. Of course there’s more corruption, 3… Read more »
Of course there’s more corruption, 3 times as much.
I don’t think corruption grows merely linearly as a function of size of government.
I was speaking metaphorically, & rhetorically exaggerating.
I meant 6 times as much ;>)
You are right. It is more of an exponential function because of all the additional frictional costs of greasing each additional layer of the bureaucracy. Everyone gets a taste.
One thing I’ve learned (the hard way) from doing corporate turnarounds and integrations—if you do not move fast and hard and early to make changes—there is little chance of success. When something is bloated and underperforming, leaving the miscreants in place hoping to “evolve” to a better performance level, the blob will defeat you.
“The business of the empire is organized crime.”
A lot of normie-cons seem to have trouble grasping, at some level, that we are ruled by gangsters. If I talk to any, I point out that one thing that demonstrates this is the House Judiciary Committee voting down an amendment during markup of the Red Flag law to automatically add known gang members to the Extreme Risk Protection Order list. I have no use for any type of Red Flag law, but that was a pretty obvious tell.
The thing going on, under the surface, at the level of the individual, is that many if not most people don’t really act based on right and wrong, but on what they can get away with. The right and wrong of it is rationalized after the fact. That is how the Bernie Madoffs and the Lori Laughlins (college kid scandal) justify their behavior, once caught. Religion has sought to place some ethical guardrails in place to discipline behavior, but that is all gone now. At the government level, there are no boundaries. Same now with the media. They simply go… Read more »
“But do you really think they will let us have even that?” Dutch – great question I’ve pondered myself. I really think we need to ponder groups like the Kurds and Chechens. As a Christian I look at the Waldensians and the persecuted church. I also live around a bunch of Amish fellows – they’ve taught me a lot. They’re all hardcore survivors. I think separatism is a great path in the short term. Still, the time will come where it will probably have to go underground, especially our economy. The enemy doesn’t want us out of sight, they want… Read more »
The separatism we seek is going to need to be a relatively invisible one, not on-line where the panopticon watches our doings 24/7, and not in a way that calls attention to ourselves in any way. We need to be those people living down the road, at the end of a long driveway, that no one ever sees and nobody knows much about. The cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the personalities we show to the public, all need to be grey and unmemorable. The panopticon will still see us, but we will be a bit out of focus… Read more »
We’re in violent agreement here. What I’m noticing though is that even going “gray and silent” can stick out like a rose in the desert, even with my nondescript cars, well concealed sidearm, and ordinary house down a 1/2 mile dirt road, complete with locked farm gate. Here’s the thing – as we secede from the prevailing culture we can’t help but thrive. You know what the culturally destitute notice when we leave the CAPT S compound? That my children have joy – they’re cheerful, they say yes ma’am & sir, brothers & sisters watch each others’ back. I’ve been… Read more »
This level of corruption has been part and parcel of how democracy operates and the types of people it draws into its inner circle. And it has always been so… In the 70s there was a book that blew the lid off of the corruption in Washington…at least that’s what it was supposed to do. “The Washington Payoff” by Robert Winter Berger. It named names: presidents, congressmen, judges, corp executives…and many many others…and it all came to naught. Democracy is a payoff system at its most fundamental mode of operation. What’s an election other than a way to buy votes.… Read more »
So when do the hangings commence? Do we have to wait for complete societal collapse? Then again, maybe that’s exactly what we need to grow a spine and cojones again.
When the supply chain finally breaks down. There are several million infidels that want to string up this criminal class, but lack the necessary society triggering event to do so.
How much of the loyalty to the corrupt system is ideological?????? I’m thinking it’s largely profit and status based. You can carve out a cushy living by doing what the system wants. All manners of grifters flock to D.C. for this reason.
Lust for profit and status generally comes first, the ideology follows. Progressivism is a religion. Heck, so is Conservative, Inc. Having walked and talked with these people I can tell you that most are true believers. You cannot live and thrive in DC without joining one of the prevailing cults … you have to live there to understand it.
The ideology is simply the means to an end, exactly right. The end is personal wealth and comfort. Epicurus tried to justify pleasure seeking by putting limits on what the Epicureans should ask for, but pleasure seeking actually has no upper boundary in the real world.
Face it. We are the white blood cells of a beleaguered immune system. And several of us must be sacrificed to stop the pathogens. Let’s be honest here.
One of the best movies made about politics is “Thank You for Smoking.” One of the best characters in that movie was William Macy playing a Senator from Vermont. It’s just so perfect and really captured the moral vacuum of the town. “At the end of the day, you have to pay the mortgage” is the going theme. McCabe, et al, have mortgages to pay, and they also like the power. DC is a different town in that it attracts a certain type. These are people who would never make it beyond second tier managers in any other place. Yes,… Read more »
In one of Zman’s podcasts, he mentioned working at one time for a politician. Two things that struck him was how stupid they were and how much they drank. I don’t recall which podcast because I would like to listen to it again.
To be a politician is to be a brick or two shy of a load. All people skills without a shred of morality. This is why democracy doesn’t work. Because politicians can convince most voters that they’re human. If democracy worked they would be mocked and tossed out left and right by the voters. How many million of them are convinced, to this day, that Hillary Clinton is this great misunderstood, downtrodden person whom they would love to be in a book club with? Hillary Clinton doesn’t like her own fans. Hillary Clinton would like to slit their throats just… Read more »
A retired-hedge fund manager friend said that the Clintons are the two most corrupt people on the planet and that people would drag them into the street to be beheaded if they knew what they did. She also thought that the Clintons would get away with their crimes.
“Like a cancer, the exception making starts to spread through the system.”
Juvenal best described corruption in the second century B.C.: “One bad apple spoils the whole barrel.”
I wonder if the Catholic scandal is such a good example. As a teenager in the sixties it was common knowledge that several of the priests in our local diocese in Boston were homosexuals. And it’s probably not coincidence that the huge drop in men entering the priesthood, along with the drop in women becoming nuns, coincided with the change in American culture from condemning homosexuality to promoting it. Perhaps the high numbers of people taking “Holy Orders” in the past was simply homosexuals needing a place where they could get their jollies with others of like mind without having… Read more »
Run an internet search for ” Liber Gomorrhianus”
It’s a book from 1051 by a Benedictine monk complaining about rampant sodomy and pederasty in the church
Looks like the Pope refused to impose harsh punishment
Never underestimate the capacity of a Catholic to process denial. It really is unbelievable. There’s plenty of denial and hypocrisy to go around, including in protestantism, by Catholicism is really something.
Catholic families were larger in the past and, in some ethnicities such as the French Quebecois and Irish, took great pride in a son or daughter entering the clergy.
My WWII vet Catholic father told me that he knew in his youth two local parish priests who would change into their civilian “go to hell” clothes and “whoop it up” in Atlantic City. I didn’t ask what “whoop it up” entailed. Maybe something they needed to go to Confession for afterwards.
“The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout “Save us!”… and I’ll look down and whisper “No.”
Notice how Drudge has begun to slant more leftward? Soros? Cashing checks from someone.
He’s in MSNBC territory now. Way over on the hysterical Left.
Because he’s read so widely he’s a major influence. I’m curious who pushed him over to the dark side.
He sure does cover HIV breakthroughs though. If you want to know the latest HIV breakthrough it’s the place to go.
I used to be a fan of Drudge but, in 2016, he was an anti-Trumper. Haven’t been there for years. I don’t known what happened.
Corruption is the greatest single failing and hazard of government and we have reached uncontrollable levels. There is a critical population for sociopaths and narcissists to hijack any institution, and they’ve been silently adding up the institutions where “institutional good faith” no longer restrains people like them – or worse yet-acts as sheep’s clothing against a trusting constituency (Wall Street, the Lavender Mafia). We have permitted institutional scale corruption until it has grown roots & formed mutually reinforcing networks of mind-f*ckery, gaslighting, selective enforcement and cui bono justice from the snout of Big Napoleon down to its squiggly tail. We’re… Read more »
Jail? Don’t be a wimp.
When Boston Globe Spotlight broke the Catholic Church kiddie diddling story back in the early 2000’s – my wife’s mother – who is a very observant Catholic almost had a stroke. At first – it was just because her beloved Catholic Church had been harboring kiddie diddlers. But it got worse. Because then it came out that one of the priests who was among the worst offenders – had been the parish priest where the mother had gone to church – and brought all my wife’s brothers and sisters (she has 5 brothers). It got even worse still – when… Read more »
Reminds me of my Dad telling me why there was minimal conflict in his little village … they just took care of things. A woman showed up with a suspicious bruise, the men held council, and that night there was a special visit with about 10-times the original abuse dished out. He said because of that culture – handling the little stuff as community – then none of the big stuff ever happened … no rapes, and of course no pedophilia. Progressives call this vigilantism … I call it stable community.
Re: The Catholic Church – rotten from the top to the bottom….. https://epiphanytampa.weebly.com/pastors-bulletin-article/why-dont-the-priests-blow-the-whistle https://epiphanytampa.weebly.com/pastors-bulletin-article/how-bad-could-the-blackmail-be https://epiphanytampa.weebly.com/pastors-bulletin-article/an-apocalyptic-pandemic https://epiphanytampa.weebly.com/pastors-bulletin-article/one-proposed-solution Excerpt: From the Pastor: Why Don’t the Priests Blow the Whistle? One question that was asked after last week’s homily was, “Why don’t ‘good’ priests and ‘good’ bishops blow the whistle on the abusive priests and bishops?” Many people still don’t (I believe most priests still don’t) understand just how evil the active homosexual or homosexual activist (AH/HA from here on out) priests and bishops are. Not understanding the extent of their depravity and wrongly thinking that they are simply “normal” men who just… Read more »
I was under the impression everyone knew about the corruption though. Doesn’t your average Joe joke about how crooked all the pols are? It’s only these urban wannabes who drink the Koolaid, and it seems nothing will shock the soiboi into seeing the truth.