Ukrainian Mysteries

Posted on November 25, 2019 by thezman

One of the puzzles to the impeachment stuff is why certain elements of the ruling class think this is a productive use of their time. The impeachment show put on by the Democrats last week struck most people as boring and weird. It was mostly a parade of people with funny sounding names babbling about inside baseball. There’s also the fact that the guy appointed to be the master of ceremonies gives people the creeps. Adam Schiff looks like frog peeping through the ice. He is a very odd man.

The bigger issue is no one seems to know what the crime is at the heart of this alleged scandal. We live in an age where the President bombs countries, overthrows governments and sends troops onto foreign soil whenever he likes. Demanding information in exchange for cash hardly seems important. The claim by the outrage mob is that it would have been perfectly fine for Trump to bomb Kiev or overthrow the government, but he crossed the line demanding they investigate criminality.

Of course, nothing in politics is as it seems. This impeachment stuff has other aspects to it. One is the outlandish corruption in Washington. The Biden family appears to have been taking massive bribes from Burisma Holdings, the dodgy energy company that operates within Ukraine. What exactly they were expecting to get is not all that clear, but it must have been worth a lot. They were not paying Hunter Biden tens of millions because he offered wise counsel. They expected something big.

Given the nature of the Washington political elite and Biden’s position within it, it is safe to assume a lot of people were getting paid by elements operating in Ukraine. They played some role in the seditious plot to overturn the 2016 election. Some of the fake information used to defraud the court for FISA warrants came from Ukraine via the Steele dossier and Fusion GPS. Of course, Mueller put Paul Manafort in jail allegedly because he had corrupt dealings in Ukraine.

This small unimportant country on the fringe of Europe seems to play an out-sized role in America politics. People forget that during the Obama administration, the foreign policy elite overthrew the elected government of Ukraine. Victoria Nuland was caught red handed working to disrupt the government in 2014. Nuland is one of those permanent party members who is never affected by elections. No matter who is in the White House, she is part of the team running foreign policy.

Of course, no discussion of Ukraine can be complete without mentioning that our greatest ally seems to have an obsession with the place. The Ukraine impeachment show looked like a Chinese restaurant on Christmas day. It was one Jew after another popping up to talk about the ancestral homeland. As Steve Sailer and many others have noted, American Jews have an obsession with their old stomping grounds in the former Russian Empire. Impeachment was shtetl porn for these people.

The Jewish obsession with that part of the world is a fascinating bit of history that never gets much attention. Third and fourth generation Irish Americans have no interest in Ireland. The same is true of Italians, Poles and even Mexicans. These groups have folded into the white American ethnic group. For Jews, the old country still looms large, even after close to a century. Look at the Russian sector of the foreign policy establishment and it is a sea of little hats.

This is probably why Russia is now a magic word in leftist circles. When the party wants to say something bad about someone, they claim the person is a Russian puppet or fond of Putin. Tulsi Gabbard, who has outrageously taken the position the Democrats had during the Bush years, with regards to endless war, is regularly accused of being a Russian agent by various rage heads on cable. For certain people, Russia will forever be the most hated enemy. The Jews really know how to hold a grudge.

That is one major reason for Ukraine being so important to Washington. It is the dream of these people to have Ukraine included in NATO, thus an official part of Europe. It is a symbolic liberation from the Russian Empire. The people from the Pale of Settlement can then claim to be European. It is an important psychological element animating much of the obsession and paranoia over that part of the world. That old need to not dwell alone is the invisible hand guiding all of this.

Of course, there is the possibility that Jews obsess over that part of the world, because that is where they have hidden the Ark of the Covenant. Instead of a government warehouse in the Midwest, it has been stashed away in the Pale of Settlement. The Jewish people have been there for a long time and their origin story is shrouded in mystery, so maybe that’s the big secret. Is that any more absurd or ridiculous than anything else in the bizarre impeachment charade?

In the end, the weirdness of this whole affair is probably why impeachment has not resonated with the public. All of these odd-looking people with foreign names strike most Americans as outsiders. They are not the sorts of characters that have meaning to them, because these are not people they can relate to as fellow citizens. The pudgy Ukrainian colonel looks like a flunky from a Bond movie. Most Americans wonder why we have a Ukrainian general working in the White House.

What impeachment and the various scandals of the ruling class demonstrate is just how foreign the ruling class is today. These are people so divorced from the daily reality of Americans, they may as well live on another planet. They can’t even put on good political theater now. Instead, it is a parade of their buddies from an obscure part of the imperial establishment. They would have been better served offering up spectral evidence that Trump is a witch. That would be more relatable.

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Marketism

Posted on November 22, 2019 by thezman

Last summer, I was asked to do a presentation to an industry group on the topic of technology and small business in America. The question was how can small and mid-sized business compete with and cooperate with the tech giants. I suspect they expected a dozy talk on how best to use LinkedIn and Facebook to attract new clients, but instead I gave a speech on how these companies need to be destroyed. If we are to avoid techno-feudalism, Silicon Valley must be wiped from the earth.

The funny thing I noticed is the older more right-wing people were uncomfortable with this sort of talk, even if the facts made sense to them. The older left-wing types were taken back by such talk. The Left in America is fully incorporated now, an extension of the human resource and training departments of global capital. The most receptive to what I was saying were the younger people. They asked a lot of good questions, suggesting they have been wrestling with this reality as well.

Last weekend, I was at an AIM meet-up. Jared Taylor, James Kirkpatrick (buy his book) and Patrick Casey were there as well. Jared gave a talk on the dangers of picking the wrong enemies. One of the wrong enemies, according to Jared, was capitalism. He gave a fiery defense of market capitalism. One of the things I noticed is that the young guys were not really buying it. Everyone loves and respects Jared, so they were polite and respectful, but I could not help but notice the skepticism.

Now, Jared is a man of his time. He remembers the 1970’s and he remembers living in Japan as the country turned the corner from post-war depression to economic powerhouse in the 1980’s. Young people inherited the product of market economics, so they take it for granted. At the same time though, they inherited the consequences of marketism. The broken homes, the busted communities, the sterile suburbs, young women throwing their lives away on feminism. That’s their frame of reference.

I thought it would make a good topic to cover in the podcast this week, especially as we head into the holy season of marketism. It is one of those topics that I think is useful in reintroducing the types of topics that must be the focus of any cultural movement. One consequence of marketism is that those naturally inclined to right-wing politics are no longer comfortable speaking about culture. Instead, everything is framed in the sterile terms of market capitalism. We’ve lost the cultural language.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

This Week’s Show

Contents

00:00: Opening
05:00: Monetizing Social Capital
15:00: Institutional Dishonesty
25:00: Neo-Taylorism
35:00: Evaluating The Results
45:00: Markets As A Tool
55:00: Closing

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Bitchute

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/Coilp17aoEc

Another Trip Around The Sun

Posted on November 21, 2019 by thezman

Yesterday was my annual physical, so I got to experience a little bit of the American health care system. Since I don’t have any maladies, I only experience the system on these annual trips to get inspected. As is always the case, when you are familiar with something, its quirks seem normal. When you are unfamiliar with something, those quirks and contradictions jump out to you. My trip to the doctor is like visiting a strange place for the first time. All the weirdness stands out to me.

The first bit of oddness is the check-in. Last year they started this new process where you answer a survey when you arrive for the appointment. They ask questions about your personal habits that are none of their business. One question was whether you own firearms and why. There’s no reason for the doctor to know this or ask it, but that question was on the survey again this year. A new question was to list the states I had visited in the last year. It is not hard to see where this is going.

Another new item this year is a kiosk where you check-in for the appointment. One of the things they do is take your picture. My dentist started this last year. There’s no reason for them to take a picture of you, at least not one to do with health. Most likely, the pics are being sold to the tech giants. The mass surveillance system being built out by companies like Google and Facebook will use facial recognition to track us as we go about our business, so they want a database of faces.

In this regard, the health care system is a glimpse into the future our rulers have planned for us. To the people in the health care system, I am just a talking meat stick, one of many, they have to supervise. The relationship between the patient and the system is impersonal and transactional. Health care is a process. The patients enter the system, pass through the system and come out the other end repaired, broken in some new way or dead. No one really cares, just as long as the process continues.

Of course, the American health care system is really just a massive series of toll booths and processing centers. All along the way, patients are turned upside down and given a good shake to get money from their insurer. If you have a malady, you get diverted into a new series of toll booths and processing centers, so the people manning those operations can dip into the insurance pool you represent. The business of treating sick people is a good business for a lot of people.

A good example of how this works is I had patella tendinitis a few years back. I was pretty sure that was the issue, but I asked the doctor about it. He sent me to a quack called a physical therapist. My insurance covered five visits, so he said I needed five visits, then I would be sent for an MRI. To get the MRI, I would need an X-ray. The doctor, of course, needed to see me in-between stops. The point of the process was to squeeze out every dime from my insurance plan.

If the goal were to treat my injury, they would have sent me for the MRI right away, as that would tell them the best course of action. They would see that it was tendinitis and that rest and a brace were the right course. That would not line the pockets of the quack, the X-ray company or the doctor, so that’s not what happens. This is one reason American health care is absurdly expensive. We have great health care, but you have to pass through a lot of toll booths to get it.

Another new thing this year was a giant flat screen in the waiting area running ads for various drugs and treatments. It used to be that the sci-fi movies about the dystopian future would show a world bombarded by ads everywhere you went. That’s where we are headed now. I suspect that the next time I see the doctor, he will have patches on his smock like race car drivers. He will great me with, “this physical has been brought to you by the makers of” some drug being pushed on patients.

The funny thing about the problems of the American health care system is that this is the one area where libertarians could apply their arguments. They don’t, of course, as that would take time away from selling weed and porn to grade school kids, but there is a libertarian case to be made about health care. In fact, we have a libertarian health care system operating in the United States. It is world class and provides amazing results for the patients. It is called veterinary medicine.

In America, our pets get better health care than most humans on earth. The cost, compared to any system in the West, is trivial. The service is phenomenal, as there are lots of suppliers competing for customers. In my area, I have one doctor and five veterinary clinics. I don’t need permission to make an appointment and I am not required to pay a monthly fee for services I’ll never use. It is a great example of how to operate a market-based health care system that no one ever mentions.

Whenever I mention this, the immediate push-back is that you can choose to put down your animal, but you cannot put down your granny. That is nonsense, as we end care all the time for terminal people. In Europe, they are euthanizing people now, sometimes against their will, just to cut costs. All the current system does is disguise these tough choices by shifting them onto the system. For most of human history people accepted that death was the inevitable end of life. We can accept is again.

The good news is the ravages of time have not made me obsolete, so the system recommended I remain operational for another orbit around the sun. Even though I had no issues to report, I was still relieved to learn I was not on that list. Like most men, I don’t like interfacing with the health care system, so good health means less interaction with the system. Of course, it will not be long before my social credit score flags me for refurbishment or perhaps recycling, but for now I get to live another day.

Low Tide

Posted on November 20, 2019 by thezman

“When the tide goes out you find out who’s naked” is an old gag in the Wall Street world, often attributed to Warren Buffett. He likes to include it in his annual letters to investors. What he means by it is the risk positions of a company are only known when they face adverse conditions, like a downturn in the economy. Others have used a version of the aphorism to mean that you find out who is a smart investor when the market takes a downturn. Similar idea, broader application.

The same sort of thinking applies to politics. Like most Wall Street traders, the political class is the last notice the tide going out on them. Most came into the game during a rising tide and came to assume good times are perpetual. If you live in the Imperial Capital, this sense is reinforced by the fact it is always a boom time, in terms of the economy, around Washington. Every year trillions of dollars flow into the city and those dollars don’t spend themselves. It’s always Christmas in the DC.

The tide does go out in politics. The moderate Democrats learned that lesson in the early 1990’s as the party began to radicalize. For the longest time they got to play the old game of talking like a normal person at home, but going along with the radicals when it came time to vote. Then Newt Gingrich figured out how to exploit this contradiction and the moderate wing of the Democrat party was eliminated in the 1994 midterm elections. The tide went out and the moderates were naked.

Something similar happened with the neoconservative cabal that had controlled the Republican Party for decades. Their appeals to normal white guy patriotism had been so effective at directing support for their endless wars in the Middle East, they just assumed it would work forever. They did not see the growing backlash on their Right until Trump captured the Republican nomination. Their reaction to the tide going out on their enterprise revealed things about them best left concealed.

One of those things revealed in 2016 was just how much these people despises their target audience. That in turn has raised an age-old question about the sorts of people in the neoconservative movement. A warmonger like Jonah Goldberg never met a war you should not fight on his behalf, but he is always ready to lecture you on your moral failings while you wage that war on his behalf. What low tide for the neocons meant was the stench of an age-old hatred for the victims of their perfidy.

Today the tide is going out again and this time it is the remaining figures of Conservative Inc. showing their nature to the world. Nick Fuentes, the young YouTube personality, has become a bug-light of sorts, for grifters to immolate themselves on in a fit of moral outrage over the groypers. It is as if there is a secret contest to see which one can put on the best smug face as they shriek about Fuentes. One after another, the dull and the witless have stepped forward to bleat their unhappiness.

Here we have bugman Dan McLaughlin claiming he sees the army of the invisible Hitlers all around Fuentes. Here we have bourgeois hausfrau Claire Lehmann warning about tricksters between trips to the liquor cabinet. John Cardillo, who everyone assumed was dead, turned up to remind everyone why that would be his best career move. The only thing that guy needs is a pic of himself on his Harley that he never takes out of the driveway. He’s the B-roll of a documentary on boomer conservatism.

Another guy who should collect his paycheck wearing a ski mask and carry a gun is Jim Geraghty from National Review. He penned a tantrum that reads like an interview with a teenage girl after an accident. Not to be left out, David French chimed-in to remind everyone that he is the king of cucks.. French is a guy who stepped over the poor and suffering in his own backyard so he could kidnap an Africa baby to tote around as a trophy to his perverted sense of righteousness.

Of course, the guys with a color in their name have got in on the game. Here we have someone calling himself Dominic Green at the Spectator telling us the groypers are the real fascists. Here’s someone calling himself Matt Purple, at the ironically titled American Conservative, telling us Fuentes is the omen. Keep in mind that AmCon has defended and employed a guy regularly arrested for soliciting sex from children. Yet, they are outraged over talk about demographic reality. When the tide goes out, guys with colors in their name reveal their perfidy.

That is what is so revealing about these guys swarming to attack Fuentes and his young acolytes. They are so craven and hollow; they are incapable of seeing any humanity in these young men. They are antibodies of the establishment, attacking what they are told is a pathogen. Nowhere in their attacks do they mention that these are young men, motivated by a real concern for their future. For the automatons of Conservative Inc., none of that matters. They do what they are told.

In dissident circles, there is a debate about whether conservatism, as an institution, is worth saving. James Kirkpatrick has a book on the subject and has talked about this topic at various events. In the end, it may be a self-answering question. As the tide goes out and more and more of these people are revealed to be hollow, soulless men without chests, the conservative enterprise looks shabbier and uglier. At this point, the question is whether they can withstand the rising tide of the dissident right.

The War On Reasonableness

Posted on November 19, 2019 by thezman

The underlying premise of consensual government is that the people in the society, at least participating in its governance, can and will debate the issues facing the people in the society. By debate, it is understood that sharp disagreement will erupt and personal squabbles will inflame any disagreements. After all, men are not angels. In the end, a consensus will form and all sides will accept it. Everyone involved may not be ruled by reason, but trusted men in a civil society are reasonable.

If you think about how a democracy must work, the assumption of reasonableness becomes clear. If it is fifty percent plus one that carries the day, the winner must acknowledge that a large minority will not like the result. That means showing the other side respect, so they will return the favor when they carry the day. On the other hand, the losing side has to accept the will of the majority. Of course, it also means all sides have to be ready to revisit the issue if the majority got it wrong.

If you wanted to characterize the current crisis in America, a way to frame it would be a war on reasonableness. It’s not a war on reason, as in objective reality. At all times and all places reasonable men have been motivated by superstition and nonsense. What matters is the reasonableness, moderation and openness to alternatives, especially from those with unpopular opinions. It is among those willing to reconsider the consensus, where solutions are found when the consensus fails.

This war on reasonableness is most obvious in the reaction to Nick Fuentes and his young followers. Reasonable people can disagree with their opinions and reasonable people can oppose their tactics. Reasonable people must also acknowledge that young people are prone to getting carried away. Reasonable men cut young guys a little slack, because they remember what it was like to be young. In the case of the groypers, they are challenging authority, which is what we expect from young people.

Unreasonable people condemn these young men to eternal damnation for daring to question official dogma. When someone accuses Fuentes of being a fascist, he is saying Fuentes is evil and therefore outside of civil society. That is the intent of using the word “fascist” or the phrase “holocaust denier.” Regardless of the pedantic quibbles about the nature of fascism and the facts of the holocaust, the intent when using those phrases is to anathematize, to declare the accused of being evil.

This is not a reasonable response to a fellow member of society. This is a call for society to exterminate the invader, like a call to the immune system of the body. They want these men removed from society as if they are a disease. It is a hysterical response by people unwilling to concede an inch to dissenters. This is how a winner take all game is played. Those with power utterly and completely subjugate those without power, in order to make sure they never challenge power.

If you are on the other side of these calls to exterminate you, how can you come away thinking there is a bargain to be had with these people? How can those in dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy want to cut a deal with people who want them dead? The start of any deal is reasonable parties willing to compromise and reach consensus. What is the middle position when one side opens with a demand for your head? Do you agree to give up an arm? A leg? Live as a pariah?

Even when you move away from the howler monkeys taking to social media to declare fatwahs on the dissenters, those who claim to be reasonable, stake out the most unreasonable of positions. When some sober minded pundit claims that race is a social construct, a statement in direct contradiction to observable reality, that’s not a reasonable position no matter how calmly stated. That is making a concession to the unreasonable in advance, in order to appease them.

In fact, indulging these crazy assertions from the woke crowd is a war on reason and reasonableness. It is an effort to socialize pathology, spreading the disease to the whole of society. It is akin to the doctor spreading the cancer to the whole body, so that the patient stops noticing the tumor. When this is what passes for reasonable debate, it marginalizes the alternatives, thus normalizing that which is abnormal and anathematizing those who still cling to the normal.

Many of the paid spokesman that the Nick Fuentes crowd have targeted love to wave around the Declaration of Independence. The open lines are their opening and closing statements on all things political. They indulge the sentimentality, without understanding the intent. That document was a statement by reasonable men, no longer willing to bargain with unreasonable men. Irreconcilable differences existed between the colonists and England. The only solution was separation.

This is where the war on reasonableness must lead. Good men seeking compromise will indulge the unreasonable for as long as they can, perhaps long beyond where they should, but eventually they stop indulging the unreasonable. At that point, there are but two choices. One is peaceful separation and the other is those reasonable men embrace unreasonable solutions to the unreasonable men in their midst. Ranse Stoddard gives way to Tom Doniphon to end Liberty Valance.

The Wilderness Of Mirrors

Posted on November 18, 2019 by thezman

A general rule in democratic politics is that nothing anyone says or does should be taken at face value. James Jesus Angleton famously described the espionage game as a wilderness of mirrors, a term he borrowed from T. S. Eliot. The same can be said of democratic politics. Everyone assumes that everyone else is operating from a hidden agenda, so no one plays anything straight. That is something to keep in mind when examining the weird impeachment show the Democrats are staging.

Conventional wisdom says this is an extension of the long running tantrum that began after the 2016 election. The Left, spiraling into revolutionary madness, is demanding vengeance for 2016. Party leaders, fearing a schism in the ranks, went along with what is a ceremonial process. Pelosi has refused to initiate a formal impeachment inquiry, as that would trigger a legal process that could easily get out of control. Instead, she has gone along with what is turning out to be a melodramatic fishing expedition.

Now, Adam Schiff is mentally ill. That’s not an amusing criticism, but an obvious fact based on his bizarre behavior and deranged demeanor. He is not too far from demanding witnesses play leapfrog while entering the hearing room. He’s not the first party member to serve while suffering from mental illness. David Wu, a congressman from Oregon, went around dressed as a tiger. The reason for this circus could simply be that the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum.

If we assume that not everyone has gone insane and that these lunatics were allowed off their leash in order to serve some other purpose, the question is what? It’s clear that they have nothing. If Pelosi allows this to move to a formal impeachment process, then she would be betting that this nothing stands up to what the White House would offer into evidence, which would be very bad for everyone in the political class. The party leaders are not going to roll those dice heading into an election.

All of this, of course, is against the backdrop of the investigation into the seditious plot to overturn the 2016 election. What should have wrapped up a year ago is supposed to be reaching some sort of denouement. Supposedly CIA officials are hiring lawyers and the Inspector General is ready to issue criminal referrals. U.S. Attorney John Durham is making the sorts of inquiries that suggests he is serious. Despite the foot-dragging, it looks like something may finally happen on that front.

This impeachment charade may very well be a part of some political negotiating going on between Democrats and the White House. The IG report has been delayed for months, so it is not unreasonable to think there is backroom dealing going on that is holding up the release. If there are to be indictments, then those who are indicted will surely consider cutting a deal. This impeachment stuff could be a stall to give the party time to cut deals with those who will take a fall and keep quiet.

There’s also the possibility that this impeachment stuff is a stall for time so the party can figure who did what exactly. One of the interesting aspects of the 2016 spying plot is the number of people involved. If it was a small group of conspirators, this would have been swept under the rug a long time ago. The scale is no doubt slowing the official inquiry, so it probably has slowed the unofficial ones as well. Maybe that’s the real point of the impeachment show. The party is still sorting the issue.

On the other hand, many of the people involved in the impeachment charade were involved in the spying plot. The outside lawyers conspiring with Schiff’s committee, were also involved in setting up the fake evidence in the Russian hoax. Some were working in the DOJ during the plot, while others worked on Mueller’s team. Much of the news “reporting” on this is being done by “reporters” who had worked hand and glove with the conspirators during the plot. We’re back to the lunatics running the asylum.

What could be happening here is that the Schiff committee is really trying to get a handle on what the administration knows about the Ukrainian corruption and the seditious plot. These hearings are about getting administration people to secretly tell Schiff what is known about these scandals, maybe talk about what the IG has been doing over the last three years. In other words, it is not about fishing for dirt on Trump, but fishing for what Barr has on the conspirators.

Another angle to that is the Ukraine plays an absurdly large role in American politics for some reason. The scandals of the Obama years always seem to have some roots in the place. Maybe that reason is a bigger, much scarier bit of corruption involving Ukraine that no one wants made public. At this point, the image of Hillary Clinton’s cackling visage should come to mind. Her off-the books e-mail system seems to have a role in all of this. Maybe she sold Ukraine something big.

There is one other facet here to consider. The genesis of this impeachment stuff was the revelation that Joe Biden and probably many other party members, were taking bribes from Ukrainian officials. That probably ended Biden’s campaign as he has been fading ever since. Maybe this Ukrainian stuff was just a way to get that information into the public domain, either by the White House or by party radicals. This is the sort of scheming these people do as a matter of habit.

Of course, you can go the other way with this and maybe the whole point of this was to get the White House to reveal the Biden stuff. If that came from some other source, the party media could not dismiss it as political shenanigans. By raising questions about Trump and Ukraine, the White House had to reveal what they had on Biden and anyone else getting their beak wet in Ukraine. That’s a bit of 4-D chess, but it is a common practice in politics. Accuse the other side of something outrageous in order to make them talk about it or disclose their own schemes about it.

Then there is the planted story about Obama cautioning the party about going too far into crazy land. These stories are written up and handed to sites like The Hill by the party, as a way to communicate to party members. This brings us back to the decision by Pelosi to allow a fake impeachment inquiry to proceed. Given the lack of public interest and the lack of any evidence of wrongdoing, this whole thing may have been a concession to the crazies, a concession that may soon be withdrawn.

Finally, any rumination on this impeachment charade has to acknowledge the lack of interest by the public. The media had their amplifiers turned to eleven. The actors on cable chat shows were given the right lines and the show opened with as much fanfare as possible. Like the new Terminator movie, it has been a flop. People took a peak and then stopped looking when they saw nothing there. Schiff really thought this was going to be a hit, but he may have been the only one.

At this point, the Cloud People are so divorced from our reality they are left to guess as to what interests the Dirt People. What we could be seeing is the fantasy world of the Cloud People in the inner party’s radical ghetto slamming into reality. They are suddenly learning that the rabble does not share their obsession with the orange golem that haunts their dreams. This impeachment show was just a big ceremony by the ruling class that failed to resonate with the general public.

The Break Up

Posted on November 16, 2019 by thezman

Not so long ago, societal collapse was a big topic of conversation among critics of the current world order. Usually it was centered on economics, as the financial system has become so complex that no one can explain it. The run-up to the mortgage crisis had lots of people promoting economic collapse theories. A decade earlier, the Y2K panic ushered in theories of technological collapse. Of course, the zombie apocalypse movies and TV shows are a regular part of the pop media rotation.

Societal collapse, however, is probably not in the cards. The best known treatment of the issue is by Joseph Tainter. In Collapse of Complex Societies, Tainter makes the point that collapse in the modern age is unlikely, as all complex societies are dependent on one another. Therefore, when one society begins to fail, the rest will provide support to prevent the rapid disintegration of the failing society. In other words, the modern age is a network of reciprocal relationships between complex societies.

In the case of America, the rest of the world needs America in order to remain intact, so a crisis in America will be met with a response from Europe, Asia and even South America. The internal response to crisis will include global support for repairing the internal problems of America. This network of relationships may not arrest the decline, but it will prevent collapse. The rest of the complex societies will ease America into the autumn of its existence, thus buying themselves time to adjust.

An alternative to this analysis comes from John Michael Greer. He wrote a paper on what he termed catabolic collapse. The general theory is that all human societies create complex institutions and social structures that require maintenance. Over time, the cost of maintaining them begins to exceed capacity. The solution is a deliberate downsizing where these complex systems are abandoned in order to focus resources on the core functions of society. Complex societies don’t collapse. They downsize.

Greer’s idea is a variation of the Tainter theory, in that it focuses on the material aspects of society. In the Tainter view, collapse is like bankruptcy that ends in a liquidation of the society. Greer’s view is a bankruptcy that leads to a reorganization of society going through bankruptcy, so it can reemerge simpler and more viable. In reality, both ideas are working from the same assumption. That is, human societies grow inefficient over time and that inefficiency eventually reaches a tipping point.

One issue that is a problem when discussing these theories of societal collapse is we tend to think of collapse as something that happens relatively quickly. That is, it happens not just in our lifetime, but overnight. One day things are going along just fine and the next day the wheels are coming off the cart. It is the image of Rome at its peak compared to the image of hairy barbarians scaling the walls. We naturally want to think of collapse as the sudden, unexpected death of society.

Collapse is most likely experienced in fits and starts, with those fits and starts spanning lifetimes. For example, the men who founded the American empire in the early 20th century passed out of this world seeing their creation in the throes of the cultural revolution of the 60’s and 70’s. The so-called greatest generation that inherited the empire from the founders, were re-engineering American society so their rotten kids would stop rioting in the street and burning the college campus.

The generation that founded the empire probably thought it was headed for collapse, but by that point they were too old to care. It did not collapse. American society stabilized, regained its footing and started to recover in the 1980’s and 1990’s, with the great economic and technological boom. Ironically, the baby boomers are experiencing what their grandparents experienced as they head for the void. They are seeing what appears to be the collapse of American society in a spasm of multicultural rage.

A half century ago, California was the epicenter of the cultural revolution that threatened to collapse society. It is the test bed for the multicultural favela the rage heads in the ruling class have planned for the nation. Today, they have rolling blackouts in a third world effort to keep from setting the state on fire. Their efforts to manage air pollution, a great crusade in the 1860’s and 1970’s, is beginning to fail. Their pension system is effectively bankrupt, just waiting to collapse in the next decade.

In other words, the spasm of decline and near collapse of a half century ago was part of a cycle of decline. This crisis will probably be followed by some correction, where things settle for a while, but never return to the prior normal. Just as the 1980’s never reached the level of social accomplishment of the post-war years, the next period of tranquility will fall far short of the 1980’s and 1990’s. It will simply be an interregnum between one period of crisis and the next, another step down the ladder of collapse.

At some point, the old social capital of the prior greatness is exhausted. The Romans were a spent people for over century before the collapse. In fact, they were arguably done in the third century. The real question about the late Roman Empire is how it managed to stagger on for so long. That may be where we are now in present day America. The next step down the ladder of decline may be so unstable that the weight of past error crashed society through to the bottom.

The case for this theory of collapse is the rapidly shrinking white middle-class. It’s not just shrinking as an economic institution, but as a cultural one. The dominant culture today is one that celebrates degeneracy and barbarism. Bourgeois culture remains, but unlike the 1980’s, it is not front and center, offering a stabilizing point to arrest the cultural turmoil of the day. The antidote to what’s happening today is not a man in a sundress demanding the rest of us pretend he is a girl.

In addition to the shrinking influence of bourgeois white culture, there is the growing sense that what’s left of America is not worth saving. Everyday, more and more white people come to the conclusion that the people they see in politics, the media and popular culture are incompatible with the world they want for themselves and their decedents. That old bourgeois white culture is looking at America like the family exhausted by an alcoholic relative. It’s time to cut our losses.

Libertarian Bashing

Posted on November 15, 2019 by thezman

Watching the kids savage the shills of TP-USA this week, put me in the mood to lash out at the libertarians. It is easy to forget that what is currently called the conservative movement is really just left-libertarianism. On the one hand, it is shilling for global business, open borders and post-nationalism. On the other hand, it is the left-wing war on western culture. Other than some vestigial references to religion and traditional values, there’s no difference between conservatism and libertarianism now.

I know a lot of old school libertarians think that their thing has been hijacked by infidels and that real libertarianism can be compatible with the dissident right. The trouble with that is they need to explain how their thing was so easily taken over by the left-wing degenerates that now dominate the racket. Again, the same critique applies here as to Buckley-style conservatism. The reason these 20th century responses to the Left failed is they all contained a fatal flaw that allowed them to be co-opted.

Now, there is a case to be made that the undoing of libertarianism was its associating with Buckley-style politics. The great paleo thinker Sam Francis observed that the Buckleyites would inevitably be absorbed into the managerial state, as they were engaging in politics on Progressive terms. In order to gain a place on stage, they were forced to accept the basic premise of Progressive politics. That is, they had to embrace the blank slate and egalitarianism. That could only lead one way.

Perhaps that is so, but it does not change the fact that libertarianism is now one of the heads of the monster. You see that in their response to dissident politics. They immediately drop the mask and begin howling left-wing talking points. The response from them to the groyper rebellion is a perfect example. You see the same hysterics and name calling that you see from the Left. It is a good reminder that these people are just part of the candy coating of the Progressive nut inside.

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05:00: Community Last (Link)
15:00: Callous Bastards (Link)
25:00: Sacrificing To Baal (Link)
35:00: Fantasy Land (Link)
45:00: Unreliable Liars (Link) (Link)
55:00: Closing

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The New Order

Posted on November 14, 2019 by thezman

One of the curious things about conservatism, as in Buckley-style conservatism, is that it never examined its failures. Even today, when asked about why they were unable to muster a defense against the homosexualization of the culture, a guy like Charlie Kirk is poleaxed by the question. He’s standing in front of a sign that reads “culture war” alongside a homosexual and he is baffled about the question. Even the more thoughtful and honest among conservatives have a huge blind spot for their past.

One reason for this is an assumption by Buckley-style conservatives that the things they oppose cannot “work” and therefore must eventually fail. Socialism, for example, is just assumed to end in failure. That’s why even now, they howl like lunatics about the empty shelves in Venezuela. It is proof that what they fear cannot withstand contact with reality, so they ignore all the other stuff going on in Venezuela. That means they also ignore all of the prosperous countries that make socialism work.

You see that in this Victor David Hanson piece on the 2020 election. He has a section on the troubles in California and mentions the power outages. He asks how it is possible for the tech giants to function in land with power outages. There is that assumption that what should not work will eventually stop working. The massive homeless problem in the state is another example he uses. The assumption is that the open borders, multiracial future is unworkable and must fail.

The trouble with this thinking is that it assumes things about the ruling class that has never been in evidence. That is, they have the same standards for civilization as a conservative like Dr. Hanson. In other words, their definition of what works is the same as his definition of what works. Therefore, unless the rulers wake up to what is happening, the system will collapse. On the other hand, if only someone can get them to see the error of their ways, they will change course to avoid disaster.

Conservatives never stop to think that maybe California is what the ruling class wants for all of North America. After all, the people running those tech giants are living great lives. In fact, they live lives no mortals have experienced in the history of man, so from their perspective, the system works. It’s not just the plutocrats at the top. All the way down the line, the managerial elite is now living as aristocrats. Sure, there is rot down toward the bottom, but that’s true of all ruling elites.

Another thing that conservatives have always gotten wrong is in the same post, where Hanson discusses national character. He laments the radical authoritarianism that is now the campus culture. He wonders what sort of politics that it will produce on the national stage. He wonders how the breakdown of order will alter politics and if this new politics will replace the national character. That is, the cultural revolution from the top will produce a response from the bottom, the victims of this assault.

This fear is rooted in an assumption that has never been true. The United States was never a nation in the tradition sense. It was always a federation of nations. The structure the Founders created was an explicit acknowledgement of it. The regional difference in the colonies at the time of the founding were not superficial. Those regional differences are still with us today, despite the migrant wave unleashed on many parts by the ruling class. America was always a house with many mansions.

Therefore, to speak of national character, other than in the most general terms, is to misunderstand the country and its people. More important, this concept of the national character is one dreamed up by the Right long ago to adjust to the triumph of Norther Progressives over the rest of the nations. It is an entirely fabricated concept with no basis in reality. It’s simply something that worked for the people in charge as a propaganda device. They can easily abandon it for something else.

That’s the thing conservatives have never grasped. For as long as anyone today has been a live there has been a ruling class. They may not have official titles and a formal role in government, but there are people in charge. Like every ruling class, their primary interest is in remaining in charge. When America was 90% white, the national character stuff that resonates with Victor David Hanson was what they used to perpetuate their rule. In other words, that sort of civic nationalism was a big lie.

Now that America is non-white, the people in charge are searching for a new moral construct to control the population. They also seek a rationale for their position as the ruling elite. Without the traditional forms of legitimacy, they have to search in their ideology for a reason to justify their position. As the long reign of Robert Mugabe showed, vengeance for past sins is a powerful tool of control. The national character, if we allow it, will be a blood libel against white people.

Finally, what remains of Buckley-style conservatism, and certainly of its mongrel variant you see from people like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, is a weird, fatalistic romanticism for a past that never existed. What draws crowds to these people is the hope that they will make it all better and that things will return to normal. That’s what makes this stuff so insidious. It prevents decent people from facing the reality of what’s coming and most important, it prevents them from preparing for it.

There will be no confirmatory collapse of the Progressive order. There will be no sudden realization of their errors and a great retreat from radical multiculturalism. There is no returning to the America of the past, real or imagined. The old white America where civic nationalism was enough to maintain regional cooperation will not work in a land of hostile strangers. In a land of tribes, many hostile and many encouraged to be hostile, something else will be used to maintain control.

Poor Rich People

Posted on November 13, 2019 by thezman

One of the great challenges of the demographic age will be re-conditioning people to think culturally, rather than materially. This is particularly true of conservative white people, who have been trained their whole lives to define their existence by the amount of stuff their heirs will throw away when they die. Theirs is an entirely materialist existence, so the transition to cultural thinking is going to be difficult. An example of this is in this post by Steve Sailer regarding public venues.

He starts with the observation that the ancients built a lot of very sturdy stone theaters and arenas, while those who came immediately after the fall of Rome did not built anything of significance. It was not until the Middle Ages that we see the building of large public structures, but those were cathedrals and churches. He notes that it took until modernity to build large public arenas. Sailer then jumps to the conclusion that the Greeks and Romans must have a lot of money relative to the Middle Ages.

Now, it certainly required a great deal of money to hire men to build amphitheaters and arenas in the ancient world. Reallocating thousands of people from farming and military service can only be done by a wealthy society. The early medieval period in Europe was not a time of great prosperity. Wealth is not enough, however. Those theaters and arenas were not just the toys of rich people. They were not built by rich people, at least not in the way in which our sports arenas are built today.

In fact, the more apt comparison is between the arenas and theaters of the ancient world and the cathedrals and churches of the Middle Ages. The theaters built by the Greeks were an important part of their cultural life. The plays and festivals reinforced the cultural values that made Greek life possible. The arenas built by the Romans were not just for sport. They also had strong cultural importance. The reenactment of great battles tied the Roman to his past and to his ancestors.

For most modern white people, Sailer’s instincts on this seem natural. After all, we live in an age without any sense of culture, other than the endless war on what is left of white culture by the brown tide sweeping the land. For most Americans, the point of life has been to stuff their pockets with as much stuff as they can. The measure of life is your pile of stuff. The super-successful at getting stuff build really large buldings where you can buy stuff, like sports jerseys to remember buying stuff.

It is a good example of how the white people who came along after the Second World War became entirely materialistic in their thinking. This is not a Baby Boomer issue, but more about the legacy of their parents. That cohort went through the Great Depression and then the privations of the war. In the ensuing boom times of the early days of the empire, they justifiably enjoyed the fruits of their labor. It was a golden age, relative what came before, so they quickly learned to value material prosperity.

The so-called greatest generation gets credit for weathering the grinding depression, without embracing communism. They get credit for fighting two industrial wars on two continents, winning both and ushering in the Pax Americana. They also should get credit, and blame, for ushering in the material age, where all things are measured in material terms. The generation that built the American empire, also built a society in which everyone knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

It has become a meme to mock the Baby Boomers for their obsession with stuff, but it is a society-wide phenomenon. Modern America functions like a ghetto riot, in which the culture is a liquor store. Everyone is just smashing and grabbing what they can, not because they need it or want it, but because that’s what they do. This is particularly true with conservatives. All of their arguments, particularly those that fall into the cultural and spiritual, have been reduced to economic appeals.

In the long scope of things, the American empire will be seen as an entirely artificial construct, built on the wreckage of Western civilization. The two great industrial wars that opened the 20th century exhausted the people spiritually. This includes the people who claimed to have saved the West. The cultural achievements of the American empire, such as they are, reflect that lack of spirit. The American empire and the culture around it is a lifeless zombie shuffling through time and space.

A simple way of seeing this is the fact that Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood and the center of American popular culture, has a homeless camp in the center. Estimates say it contains 70,000 of our fellow citizens. Yet, the super-rich who run the city are not concerned in the least. After all, they have their stuff. Even the most callous of Roman emperor had compassion for the poor of Rome. The modern American oligarch has nothing but contempt for those who cannot consume product.

The current ructions are not a response to the changing demographics as the suicidal wreckers like to claim. It’s not about the transition to a post-national order. The reason for the growing unhappiness is that modern American society offers no purpose, no beauty and no reason to celebrate life. It’s an ugly age with a sterile ascetic that reflects the transactional nature of the age. This is an unnatural state for people, so the people are increasingly unhappy with life in the material age.

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