The End Of Empire

Posted on February 14, 2022 by thezman

Note: The Monday Taki post is up. The subject of it and today’s post is the rather bizarre crisis in Europe. Of course, Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door for those needing audio stimulation. Much of it is about the situation in Europe.

The question that has not been given much consideration over the last few decades is how exactly will the Global American Empire end? All empires come to an end, but not all of them end the same. Usually, they dissolve into their constituent parts like we saw with the Soviet Union. This may or may not bring with it a spasm of violence, but the unnatural combination eventually returns to its nature. What makes each empire unique is its birth and its death.

Like every empire before it, the Global American Empire will end. This may be what we are seeing with the current crisis in Europe over Ukraine. Russia is well past the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. Europe has also evolved past the old arrangements made necessary by the Cold War. The only player stuck in the past is the Global American Empire, which is carrying on like it is 1960. We are now seeing the hints of the end for the American empire in Europe.

The starting place is the fact that the stuff coming from Washington is so bizarre that not even the Ukrainians understand it. The rhetoric has gone well beyond the normal sort of moralizing that has distinguished the American empire. Washington and now London have conjured a reality in which the Russians are ready to launch into Ukraine while the Russians and Ukrainians are happy to find a peaceful solution. The whole thing is making Washington look a bit nuts.

All of this happening against the reality that if the Russians want to invade Ukraine there is nothing NATO can do about it. If the Russians wanted to move onto Berlin there is not much NATO could do to stop them. Over time, the West would be able to rally and cripple the Russians economically, then roll them back militarily, but in the short term everyone gets that NATO is a paper tiger. It is also a pointless vestige from a bygone era that should have been scrapped a generation ago.

This is one entry point into the crisis. The Germans want to finish Nord Stream 2 and build closer economic ties with Russia. The Russians want to restore their ancient relationship with Western Europe. They will not accept the American conditions that they must embrace the religion of the West. There will be no rainbows and transsexuals in the Russian culture. There will be no scenes of Russian soldiers walking around in pumps claiming to be sorry for their ancestors.

The Germans and the French seem to be ready to make the deal with the Russians and begin a new era for both sides. The Russians can maintain their traditional model for organizing themselves and Europe will begin to normalize economic relations with the rest of Eurasia. This leaves little room for the Global American Empire, which is based on an assertion that there is only one moral way to organize a society. This potential new arrangement is a rebuke of the very idea of empire.

Another entry point into viewing the current crisis as a stage in the dissolution of the Global American Empire is in the reaction itself. Even the American media has lost track of how many times the Biden people have claimed an invasion is imminent. It feels like it is a weekly thing now. The State Department swears the tanks are revving their engines and then nothing happens. European leaders have to be wondering if the empire is losing its grip on reality.

The hysteria could very well be the only thing left. Again, if Russian draws the line on NATO expansion and takes over Ukraine, there is very little Washington can do about it other than make a lot of noise. The promise of crippling economic sanctions is as ridiculous as the rest of the bellowing. Europe needs to buy important stuff from Russia in order to exist. Germany and France will go along with superficial stuff to please Washington, but they are not committing suicide over Ukraine.

What we may be entering is a final phase of the Global American Empire in which conflicting realities create a lot of friction. One reality is that America’s dominion over Europe was always unnatural for both sides. In the Cold War it was seen as a necessity, so it was a tolerable contradiction. Those conditions have not existed for over a generation now and reality is reasserting itself. Western Europe will be dominated by France and Germany and Eastern Europe by Russia.

Another set of conflicting realities is that the heritage stock of America never wanted to be a major player in world affairs. The sales pitch by the imperial leaders was always based on this assumed reluctance. The Global American Empire was a necessity born out of war and tragedy. That necessity is long over and yet the managerial elite of the empire insists on maintaining the empire. Meanwhile the public is dealing with cultural and economic collapse.

There has never been a time when the average American has felt more divorced from his government than now. The guy the empire counts on to wave the flag and respond to war drums is not sure which side to support. This is one of those unspoken truths about this Ukraine affair. The reservoir of patriotism is now dry among the cohort of Americans who have always been the most patriotic. The response from these people over Ukraine is a shrug or maybe a wry smile.

This may be what the end empire is like from the inside. We will have spasms of bellowing and shouting from Washington, but the world will slowly crawl out from under the shadow of Washington. Meanwhile, domestic politics will grow increasingly untenable, with populist revolt replacing electoral organizing. The system simply stops working as the reason for it to keep working no longer makes sense. The end of empire is a million small breakdowns in the system.

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To What End?

Posted on February 9, 2022 by thezman

Note: For those in need of some audio stimulation, my appearance on Cotto & Gottfried is now up on iTunes. It is mostly about the state of conservatism.

It has been noted many times now that people in the West have to read American media the same way they used to read the Soviet media. Most of what we get from mainstream sources is the natural propaganda one expects from the toadies and bootlickers that follow every authoritarian regime. Other pieces are planted by regime elements for reasons that are not always obvious. As with Kremlinology a generation ago, regime-ology is something of sport now.

For example, the regime keeps planting these stories about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine in their favorites outlets. A few days ago this entirely made up report was sprinkled all over regime media. It painted a grim picture of the attack that we are told was happening any minute. Of course, the White House comes out every day and tells the stenographers in the press pool that the Russians will invade Ukraine as soon as tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes.

Today we have the latest regime scare story written by one of the zombies at their favorite outlet. The point of this story is to embarrass French President Emmanuel Macron who is trying to work out a deal with the Russians. He has been meeting with the parties the last two weeks to put an end to the situation. Unlike the Washington regime, Europe has no interest in war over Ukraine. The Europeans can read a map and they are not insane.

For a long time, it was assumed that the reason for the war drums from Washington was due to so many pols being on the Ukrainian payroll. We know the Biden family has been taking bribes from Ukraine for over a decade. That was one of those interesting stories that arose from the second impeachment of Trump. This tiny little corrupt country in Eurasia had a lot of friends in both political parties. The best sort of friends, the kind that can be bought and will stay bought.

That may be part of it, but it is clear that the Ukrainians have no desire to be the battleground in a new Cold War. For their part, the Russians have made clear they will never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. This should be an easy demand to meet, as no one in NATO, other than the Washington regime, wants Ukraine in NATO. Everyone in Europe understands the reality of Ukraine. It is a hyper corrupt kleptocracy that would be better off turned into a federalized neutral zone.

The other aspect of this is that the stories about the Russian military buildup appear to be mostly fake. The Russians are free to conduct exercises in their own land, which is what they have been doing thus far. They have not been sending weapons or “advisers” to the friendly militias operating in Ukraine. The CIA has been conducting covert operations with friendly militias for a decade now. In other words, this whole thing is one long running color revolution.

That raises the obvious question. If no one in Europe wants a war over Ukraine and the Ukrainians are not interested in a war, what is really going on here? One option is the permanent foreign policy establishment is infested with paranoids who wake in the middle of the night to the sound of hoofbeats. That has been an amusing line for years, but it would be a terrifying reality. Is the Ukraine mess really the result of deranged fanatics operating in the Washington foreign policy establishment?

Another less terrifying option is energy. The one thread that ties the foreign policy misadventures of the last thirty years together is energy. Russia has partnered with Iran and Syria because of energy. If they can control of natural gas out of the Middle East into Europe, that gives them leverage. Nord Stream 2 is a regular topic for the regime media, so it is fair to assume that the regime is worried about it. In this context, Ukraine is just a convenient cat’s paw in a larger geopolitical game.

What the regime is hoping for is an invasion of Ukraine that would then force the Europeans, especially the Germans, to kill Nord Stream 2. The Russians would remain the primary supplier of natural gas to Europe, but they would not become the exclusive supplier of energy. If Nord Stream 2 comes online Washington loses most of its leverage over Europe with regards to Russia. This is why they are so committed to this narrative about a Russian invasion. It has to happen.

The problem with this scenario is that it is too late to kill Nord Stream 2. The pipeline is complete and filled with gas. The last step in the project is for Germany to start using the gas and pay the Russians for it. No sane person can imagine a scenario in which this project is shut down. Even an invasion of Ukraine by Russia would only delay the opening of the pipeline. The Germans want the gas, the Russians want to sell it to them, so that deal will be consummated no matter what.

One interesting side bar to this is that the regime is certain they can jawbone the Russians into invading Ukraine. They also seem to think they can convince the world that a war is imminent. It is one of those examples where the regime reveals how disconnected they are from reality. Exactly no one seems to be falling for this disinformation campaign, especially the Russians. Yet the regime keeps running these stories in their media as if they are working.

As was the case with Kremlinology, we are left with our best guesses as to why the Washington regime is hyper-aggressive toward Russia. It could simply be cultural momentum within the foreign policy establishment. No one inside the regime knows why they have to talk about Russia as the great villain. It has just been the way it has always been. No one questions it, so the cultural inertia inside the system just keeps pushing the political class into confrontation with Russia.

That is the problem with closed regimes like we have in Washington. No one can see inside to figure out what is happening. Everyone inside sees everyone outside as a possible enemy, so no one talks candidly about what is happening. Everything operates inside of a black box. No one sees in and no one sees out. To the outside the world, the regime looks increasingly paranoid and dangerous. Eventually, it burns through its legitimacy and we arrive at a Ceausescu moment.

Ukraine On The Brain

Posted on February 2, 2022 by thezman

The surest way to lose an argument is to concede the premise put forth by the person taking the other side of the debate. His starting premise is, at the very minimum, not harmful to his argument. Most likely, he starts with a premise that makes his conclusions inevitable. It would be insane to start from a premise that must lead to a contradictory conclusion. If you concede his premise without considering this strong possibility, you are sure to lose the debate.

This is why it is always good to be wary of people who claim to support your argument, but who insists upon conceding the premise of your opponent. Either that person is stupid or they are trying to undermine your argument. This has been the history of conservatism in America. They concede the premise to the Progressives, while claiming they can win the argument against the Progressives. This was famously observed by Robert Lewis Dabney a century ago.

Victor David Hanson has a post about Ukraine that is a good example of how the so-called conservatives concede the moral high ground. He opens with what is best described as a gratuitous assertion. “Americans want an autonomous Ukraine to survive. They hope the West can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strangulation of both Ukraine and NATO.” No evidence is offered in support of this assertion, because no American outside Washington cares about Ukraine.

His third sentence is even more divorced from reality than the first. “Most Americans oppose the notion that Russia can simply dictate the future of Ukraine.” The truth is, most Americans do not care about this part of the world in the least. Russia could turn Ukraine into a nuclear testing zone and most Americans would only care if it made for some interesting video. Otherwise, Ukraine is down there on the list of concerns with land management in Uzbekistan.

What Hanson is up to here is making the old neoconservative case for endless intervention in the world. That case has been built on the claim that Americans care about the world and Americans will support the costs of meddling in the affairs of far away places like Ukraine. Neoconservatism has always rested on a manufactured consent of the majority. This appeal to the will of the people provides the moral authority for endless intervention in the world.

When the premise of the debate is that the American people care deeply about the territorial integrity of our ancient ally Ukraine and they are committed to stopping our ancient enemy Russia, there is only one plausible conclusion. The to-ing and fro-ing he goes through in that post is just window dressing. If the people demand the safety of Ukraine and define that as the rejection of Russian interests along their border, America has no choice but to be enmeshed in this conflict.

The rhetorical sleight of hand does not end there. Hanson makes clear that this conflict would be over if Putin respected Biden and his team. You see, despite the bellicose language from Team Biden, they are appeasers. Their tough talk about Ukraine is really just a coded surrender of Ukraine. Everyone knows that only one man in human history was ever appeased, so when you think about it, Ukraine is the Sudetenland and Joe Biden is this generation’s Neville Chamberlain.

The argument here is totally bonkers, but it is the natural result of conceding the premise of empire. Once you accept that America has a right and duty to arrange the world to reflect the current values of American elites, there is no conflict too small or too far away that does not demand intervention. In fact, Americans must naturally demand intervention, as to do other wise would be to let evil triumph. This is neoconservatism tarted up with some populist sounding handwringing.

This is why non-interventionism is seen as a bigger threat to the current order than a nuclear exchange with Russia or war with China in the Pacific. To accept the fact that there are some places around the world that are not the business of the American empire opens the debate about the limits of empire. Once we accept that there is a line beyond which it is immoral for us to go, the debate is about where to draw the line and neoconservatism has no argument for this.

Further, if we concede that Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine, rooted in their history and culture, then we must concede that history and culture exists as something other than social constructs. In other words, to take the claims of Russia seriously is to question a fundamental premise of the current order. This is where it becomes plain that American interests in Ukraine have little to do with reality on the ground and everything to do with the prevailing morality of Washington.

This is why the neoconservatives insist that the American people have a strong interest in protecting Ukraine. If they can make that the premise of the debate, there is never a reason to question the endless meddling in the region. The debate is about how to meddle in their affairs, not whether we should meddle in the region. The former serves the interest of the neocons, while the latter excludes them from the debate, something that needs to happen sooner rather than later.

The Clash Of Ideas

Posted on December 8, 2021 by thezman

The most difficult thing for most people to grasp is that the first mover of history is not people or events but ideas. The thing that sets it all in motion is a mental construct or a set of constructs that form the concept of a potential future. It is this mental image, not always well defined, out on the horizon that motivates men. Often the popular players in the drama are not fully aware of the ideas behind their actions. They are men of action, not thinkers, so they act on what they believe they know.

The simmering conflict in Ukraine between Russia and the American empire is a good example of how ideas drive events. On the surface it looks like a petty and pointless conflict between two old rivals. As Pat Buchanan notes in his recent column, Ukraine is meaningless, in terms of national interest, to the United States. Buchanan is speaking in practical terms here. Ukraine has nothing but corrupt politicians and poor people who deserve better than their current rulers.

This lack of practical interest does not prevent the usual suspects in the American foreign policy establishment from claiming otherwise. They see Ukraine as another block in the containment wall they are hoping to build around Russia. For them, the Cold War never ended, because their hatred of Russia goes back to much older ideas about Russia and Eastern Europe. For them, Ukraine is important because it is important to the Russian sense of itself.

For Russia, Ukraine is the line in the sand. Their role in the region goes back to the very dawn of the Russian people. Not only does this region have practical interests for the Russians in terms of doing business with the West, but it is the Russian frontier with the West, the place where the West ends and Eurasia begins. The American empire annexing Ukraine into the West is an act of war because it is the next logical step in the West invading Russia proper, a habit going back to Napoleon.

There you see another one of those ideas that is driving the scheming sessions in the West over Ukraine. The American empire is animated by a set of ideas we now call liberal democracy. One of the ideas within that basket of concepts is the belief that there is only one moral way to organize a society. That one way, conveniently enough, is liberal democracy. Anything and anyone opposed to it is outside the family of man and standing athwart the flow of history.

The alternative to that universalist belief in liberal democracy, the thing that stands in the way of history, is not an alternative universal belief, but rather the rejection of the claim to a universal order. The opposite of the unipolar, global order organized around a secular religion is a multipolar world that reflects the different histories and traditions of the human family. In other words, what opposes liberal democracy is the rejection of it being the one true god of man.

This is what lies at the heart of the Russian interest in Ukraine. Few in the West bother reading Dugin, but he is rejected as a neo-fascist ideologue because that is how the hive mind of liberal democracy works. In reality, Dugin is not much of an ideologue but more of the rejection of ideology. Universalism is the traveling partner of ideology just as it is with religion. The ideologue starts from the assumption that his beliefs are correct, which by defining means the alternatives are wrong.

Duginism accepts that there are many ways for a people to organize themselves and these ways are tied to their history as a people. What works in the West is not going to work in Africa or Eurasia, because the history and traditions of the West that created liberal democracy do not exist in other places. To impose liberal democracy on a people without the necessary ingredients for it is no different than forcibly converting a people to a new religion, which is the liberal project at heart.

As this applies to Russia, it means the interests of the Russian people are only tied to the global order in so far as the global order tries to impose on them. History says Russia needs to maintain a buffer zone between itself and the West in order to guard against whatever the global order is calling itself at the moment. The long open country was what defeated Napoleon and Hitler. It is what is required to defend against the American empire and its cultural forces.

This is why war between the West and Russia may be inevitable. Universalist creeds like liberal democracy cannot abide by dissent. That is why the West in general and America in particular operate like theocracies now. Dissent, even in the mildest form, suggests the one true faith is flawed. Worse yet, it suggests it is proper to question the tenets of the faith. This suggests the wheel of history does not move as the faith requires, which calls the whole project into question.

This is why the American empire must bring Russia to heel. Washington views Russia as it does heretics at home. The annexation of Ukraine is not about mundane things like money and power. For sure, powerful people are benefitting from this by cutting deals with the crooks running Ukraine. Opportunists exist in every stage of history. What is animating foreign policy, however, is a millenarian zeal to finish the liberal project and bring about the final chapter of humanity.

On the other side, it is why Russia must resist this encroachment. In order for there to be a Russia it must exist outside of this ideological space called the West. Russia is defined by being both in Europe and outside of Europe. The Russian people have always been at the top of this alternative order populated by the people of Eurasia, so they exist to maintain it. To succumb to the West, to be incorporated in the liberal order, is to cease to exist as a unique people.

At a practical level, the war over Ukraine is a pointless fight over trivial stuff, but it is the ideas behind it that make it world changing. From the perspective of the mullahs in Washington, the survival of the West is at stake. From the perspective of Russia, the survival of the Russian people is what is being challenged in Ukraine. Even though the Finlandization of Ukraine looks like a practical solution, in reality there is no compromise between these two conflicting ideas.

The crackdown by the oligarchs on dissidents has had the happy result of a proliferation of new ways to support your favorite creator. If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

The New Bogeyman

Posted on October 21, 2021 by thezman

Last week, the media was buzzing with claims that the Chinese have mastered hypersonic technology. They had flown a hypersonic glider around the globe and then delivered it to a target. Supposedly the glider was capable of carrying and therefore delivering a nuclear weapon. Additionally, the US military claimed to not know how they managed to pull it off. The implication being that the Chinese have now surpassed the American empire in military technology.

The official outlet for the Washington regime promptly put out an essay warning about the threat China now poses. Th point of the essay is to frame the debate over how best to wage the new cold war. One side will be dovish and seek to negotiate, while the other side will be hawkish and want to keep pace with the Chinese. The compromise will be both sides get what they want. This means jobs and cash for the army of managerial class flunkies and military contractors.

The one thing the ruling elite agrees upon is that they need a new enemy and the best one available is the Sino-Russian alliance. On the one hand, the Russians reportedly have magical powers that allow them to muck around in the domestic affairs of the United States and its allies. The Russians are well known meddlers. They are also known for their hacking. The proof of that is Washington has been complaining about Russian meddling and hacking for years.

While the Russians are the brains of the operation, China is being cast as the muscle, supplying the men and arms to threaten the world. Until now everyone understood that Chinese military technology was not cutting edge. China has always been a land-based civilization, so that means no blue water navy and no ability to project power too far beyond her borders. That is why these Chinese hypersonic stories are being planted in regime friendly media outlets.

Even in a cynical age, the power of the mass media is real. The steady beating of the drums about China even has the antiwar people alarmed. The American Conservative opposed all of the wars against the Muslims, but it is now hawkish on China. They are even going in for the “we must defend an abstract concept” ploy that has always been popular with the regime. In this case, China threatens the “alliance system” which is suddenly the most important thing ever.

Interestingly, none of the newly minted China hawks have shown any interest in alternatives to another pointless cold war. America could use economic tools to put pressure on the Chinese. There is no way the Chinese can continue to operate without trade with the US. It is a two-way street, of course, but America outsourced its manufacturing base to China so a handful of men could get richer, not because we lacked domestic resources to make our own stuff.

More important, the American empire controls the very basis of the global economy, which is the money supply. China and Russia can make a show out of trading with one another in their own currencies, but the rest of the world is never abandoning the dollar as the reserve currency. Every wealthy Chinaman has reserves of dollars stashed away in Western banks. As a result, America can put an enormous amount of pressure on the ChiComs without a single carrier leaving port.

Of course, no one seems to be interested in the absurdity of having a tense military stand-off with China yet simultaneously conducting massive amounts of business with her at the same time. Imagine if in the Cold War American business was outsourcing critical supply chains to Russia. How about in the last great war, key industries were sold off to the Germans? That is what is being proposed, in effect, with this stand-off with the Chinese over Taiwan.

Then you have the fact that the people rolling out this new campaign to create an enemy for the regime are the same people who told us that Saddam was the new Hitler and a threat to the world. They told us they were bringing democracy to Afghanistan, and they have been telling us Syria uses chemical weapons on its people. They are the same people who said Islam was a threat to the West then massively increased the number of Muslims settling in the West.

It should not take too much cynicism to think that maybe the people who have lied before are possibly lying now. After all, they lied about the nuclear program in Iraq in the face of technological reality. Building a bomb is very hard, requires massive resources and lots of smart people. Iraq had none of those things. Similarly, the West has been working with hypersonic gliders for generations. So far, they have proven to be expensive toys without much military use.

The fact is the threat from China is not really from China but from the pirates that run the economy who like doing business with China. The threat is the Western scientist who are willing to take Chinese money to perform forbidden research. It is the American tech companies willing to sellout the country for the opportunity to make money helping the Chinese communists. China is a symptom of a much graver problem, one that exists in the ruling class of the American empire.

There is money to be made in the next hoax, so everyone with the dream of living in the clouds will be happy to jump on it. Conservatives will be allowed to pretend they matter again, so they love this idea. The military industrial project will get new batches of cash to buy new toys. The think tanks around DC will get cash to write papers that no one will ever read. Meanwhile the middle-class will continue to shrink, and millions of barbarians will keep pouring over the border.

Peak Israel, Peak Empire

Posted on August 26, 2021 by thezman

There is an old expression about the Bolshevik revolution that says it was made by Jewish brains, Latvian bayonets, and Russian stupidity. There is a lot of truth to it, as the ethnic makeup of the revolution was not very Russian. One way to look at the revolution is as a revolt of subject people against their old masters. This was made possible by the cupidity and stupidity of the Russian elites. A very similar thing is happening in the American empire, just at a slower pace.

This formulation can also apply to the Middle East. For a long time now, the history of the region has been shaped by a combination of Israeli strategy, Saudi Arabian oil, and American force. It is reasonable to say that America would have no presence in the region if not for Israel. The creation of the Jewish state in 1948 set the region on fire, drawing in the Americans and Russian. Oil and gas, of course, is what made the region vital in the long battle between the two empires.

Since the Cold War ended, the primary reason for US involvement has been Israeli intrigue and Saudi oil production. The first crusade in Iraq was about protecting the oil and gas interests. The second crusade was about changing the balance of power in the region to meet Israel security needs. The crusade in Afghanistan was mostly about containing Iran, despite the rhetoric. Look at a map and it is easy to see that it would be a useful launching pad for air strikes against the Iranians.

The collapse of Afghanistan is getting a lot attention, but it is part of a larger collapse of the regional order. Israel, for example, has undergone a political revolution of sorts with the end of the Netanyahu regime. The new prime minister is the product of the neo-liberal order, rather than the fight for independence. He got rich selling software in America and his parents were left-wing fanatics from San Francisco. He is a man of the global managerial class rather than the local elite.

On the Saudi side of things, the walls continue to close in as their stranglehold on the oil and gas market collapses. New technology has opened up vast reserves in North America, so the need for Saudi oil has declined. Iran’s Caspian Sea natural gas deposit will put her on even footing with the Saudis. That leg of the triumvirate driving regional politics is no longer the gatekeeper of the world’s energy supply. Soon, they will be just another gas station selling a commodity on the world market.

Taken together, the old combination of Israeli strategy, Saudi Arabian oil and American force is about to unravel. America still has troops staged in Syria and Iraq, but the writing is on the wall there too. It also means Israel as the primary mover and shaker in the region is coming to an end. Without American firepower and the Saudi control of energy politics, Israeli is just another country in the region. Throw in the Russian-Iranian partnership and the Middle East is going to look very different.

This is one reason the neoconservatives have been trying to restart the Cold War with the Russians. Given the their involvement in the Middle East, a new contest with them would draw America back into the region. It was also why Israel talked Trump into dumping the Iran deal. Normalization of relations between Europe and Iran makes war with Iran impossible. If that is not an option, then there is little point in America maintaining a military presence in the region.

What we may be seeing is peak Israel. For generations, Israel has occupied the center of American politics. During the Cold War, the three “I’s” of politics were Israel, Indiana, and Ireland. After the Cold War it was Israel, India, and Investment Banking. It is fair to say that what passes for conservatism in America is just low-tax Zionism. The collapse of American involvement in the region means there is little reason to make Israel the focal point of American politics.

This is no small thing. The Republicans are celebrating the bad fortune of Biden and the Democrats over Afghanistan, but this is very bad for them. During the Cold War, the left-side of the American ruling elite was allowed a free hand in domestic affairs and the right-side ran foreign affairs. The end of the Soviet empire left the right-side without a reason to exist, so we got the crusades against Islam for the last 30 years. Suddenly, the only reason to vote Republican has gone away.

It is not all roses for the left-side either. Without the distraction of endless war, the focus will be on domestic issues. All of those people who were titillated by the prospect of “glassing” various countries can now focus their energy on the people trying to turn their sons into girls. America has been at war with someone for close to a century now and this has allowed the Left to remake the country. It also allowed them to underwrite their schemes with the proceeds of empire.

For seventy years, Israel has played an enormous role in the politics of the American empire, but that seems to be coming to an end. It may be that Trump’s decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem was the top of Israeli influence. The fading of the American empire, particularly in the Middle East, means the influence of Israel on the world must fade with it. It also means the Israelis will have to seek new partners in their endless game of neighborhood politics. America is no longer useful.

The Benjamin Button Times

Posted on August 19, 2021 by thezman

Note: This coming Saturday, there will be an on-line debate between Jared Taylor and E. Michael Jones. The topic, “Is Race an Important Reality or a Fiction?”, will have Taylor on the race realist side and Jones on the race denialist side. The debate will be LIVE on Saturday, August 21, on Entropy, DLive, and Odysee at: 1pm L.A. / 4pm New York / 21:00 London / 22:00 Stockholm.

In The Inequality of Man, the great evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane noted that fanaticism was one of the great inventions of the pre-modern world. Obsessive enthusiasm, especially for an unattainable thing like paradise, makes the fanatic a violent force of nature. We see that with the current Afghan debacle. The open borders fanatics have immediately seized on the crisis to justify importing millions of Afghans into your neighborhood. They never miss a beat.

Similarly, the same people responsible for losing yet another war for the empire are now using the Afghan mess to demand money for their China project. The logic here is that the willingness to abandon Afghanistan, as if it was the crown jewel of the empire, means China will think the US will abandon Taiwan. They may make a play for reclaiming the island nation as a result. The remedy is to give the brain trust of the military industrial complex more money for more new stuff.

The “heads we win, tails you lose” psychology of the military industrial complex is one of those signs of rot that does not get enough attention. The truth is, Afghanistan fell victim to the same disease that afflicts everything else. It quickly became a racket for rich people to skim money from Americans. Billions went to NGO’s and civilian contractors, who then used some portion of it to reward their favorite politicians back in Washington for their support of Afghanistan.

Putting that aside, how realistic is it that China will look at this as their chance to make a move on Taiwan? The answer depends upon your view of China, rather than what is happening with the empire. The old Sinophiles still see the healthy young dragon of their youth, so they assume she will make her play sooner rather than later, because she is not getting any younger. The new Sino-skeptics see an aging dragon that has a pot-belly and smokes too much to fight anyone.

In both cases, China’s demographics are important. China’s one child policy and her sudden fertility collapse is creating a demographic disaster. The Sinophiles think this means she has to move now before it is too late, and the Sino-skeptics think it is already too late. The typical Chinese person right now is a 39-year-old man. He most likely lives in a city which means he is enjoying city life. The collapse of Chinese fertility means China is the fastest aging population in history.

You can see why the Sinophiles think China has to move now if she ever plans to move on Taiwan, but you also see why that may be impossible. That bottomless pit of young males that make good fighters is quickly drying up. Compounding it is the fact that China now has a very restless middle-class. So much so that the party is now plotting to give the billionaires a haircut in order to redistribute wealth. This is a move to shore up popular support with the middle-aged, middle class.

The worst possible thing the party could do for this demographic is launch of pointless war of choice to seize Taiwan. This would mean diverting resources from that middle-class to the war effort. It would also lead to an economic collapse, as China needs access to the Pacific to trade with the world. They also depend on the dollar and access to US markets. There is popular support for retaking Taiwan, but middle-aged support tends to be a mile wide and inch deep.

This is why the West has gone along with the kooky schemes of the radicals in charge of the institutions. Protesting the government is a young man’s game and the West is short of young men. When you are 25 with nothing to lose, you will bet your life in a better future. When you are 45 with everything to lose, you will risk very little. The is the situation in China. It is increasingly a land full of middle-aged people who don’t want to lose what they struggled so hard to acquire.

Of course, there is the military reality. Even though the US military is run by lunatics and goofballs, the war-making disparity is massive. China, for example, has two aircraft carriers that require air support from land to operate. The US has nuclear powered carriers that can attack from beyond China’s reach. Then there is the massive submarine fleet that can reach out and touch every point in China. An attack on Taiwan would be a disaster for the Chinese military.

When you start looking at the reality of current China, rather than the romantic image of 1990’s China, there is a good case that she is in decline. She went from medieval to modern in a couple of generations, which was impressive. This is why so many still see her as a marvel of central planning. The thing is though, that speed of progress is now quickly taking her past her peak deep into the modern disease. China has a bad case of “Benjamin Button” syndrome and there is no known cure for it.

That does not rule out war in the Pacific. One lesson from Afghanistan is that the military industrial complex is a massive money laundering operation. It needs low-grade wars to keep it going. In fact, the political system needs it as well. Now that the crusades against Islam have run out of steam, the war machine needs a new racket to launder the trillions. That most likely means a cold war with China that requires trillions in new toys and new experts to “keep American safe.”

Lessons From Afghanistan

Posted on August 16, 2021 by thezman

Note: There is new content behind the green door. If you are not signed up, please consider it as it will bring you happiness and save your soul. Sunday Thoughts covers the Afghan situation and some other interesting new items. The Taki post is up and it is about the Afghanistan debacle. There is a pattern here.

Over the last week, the world has watched the great project of the American empire fall to pieces as if it was a controlled demolition. The Taliban has swept across Afghanistan, facing little more than token resistance from the official government. In fact, the official government fled the country without even pretending to care. As of Sunday evening, the U.S. government was scrambling to figure out how to evacuate the people with American citizenship while begging the Taliban for relief.

This week, regime elements will be playing the blame game, no doubt settling on the previous administration as the real culprit. Faced with disconfirmation of their beliefs, the new religion of our rulers triggers a process whereby they are convinced that the latest setback is actually part of the great plan. It is a sort of test of faith and the only way to get past it and continue the flow of history is to believe harder. In time, this will become a bloody shirt in the way Vietnam was for a generation.

Putting that aside, the collapse of the Afghan model reveals some things about the ruling regime that are useful to dissidents. The big lesson is that the Washington regime never felt it necessary to subvert the culture of Afghanistan. Instead, they spent twenty years celebrating it. Sure, they did the superficial stuff like flying the flags of various sexual deviants over the embassy, but they never tried to impose it on the Afghans in the same was we see them do it to white Americans.

If the Afghans were white, the empire would have accused them of Afghan privilege or maybe Afghan supremacy then set about destroying their culture. There would have been gay imams in rainbow colored tunics preaching about how Muhamad was really into sodomy. Of course, there would have been a heavy emphasis on women’s sports, perhaps fielding an all lesbian soccer team. None of that happened because that would have been insulting to the Afghans and their ways.

The big thing that the empire did not do that they are doing in their alleged home base of America is replace the people. A big part of the war on whiteness is the importation of millions of nonwhites into white countries. It is part of the dialectic made real, where mass immigration is the negation of white culture. The empire could have done this in Afghanistan with no trouble. There are a billion Africans looking for a better deal, so they could have imported some of them to celebrate diversity.

That really is the telling feature of the twenty year occupation. The rules in place over there were the exact opposite of the rules in place over here. There was no systematic statue toppling, no mass media campaigns against Afghan culture and no chanting about diversity being a strength. One could be forgiven for thinking that the people in charge of the American empire have more respect for Afghan culture and Afghan people than they have for the American people and their culture.

These are things most people probably knew, if they took the time to think about it, but the events of last weekend provide a good reminder. In the weeks to come, the ruling class will care more about the fortunes of people in Afghanistan than the victims of their opioid crisis they inflicted on rural America. They will work harder to preserve the “rights” of collaborators left behind in Kabul than the rights of American being held in dungeons around Washington. They hate us that much.

The useful lesson in all of this is these people have once again revealed that they really do believe their own nonsense. The old paleos remain convinced that the elites know their preaching is all nonsense, but the Afghan debacle is proof that they do get high from their own supply. The plan was to celebrate the exit on 9/11 as “mission accomplished” and then forget about the whole thing. Biden would get credit for finishing Obama’s project and ending the Bush war.

Over the weekend, their lack of preparation was on display, as the regime media was not provided with a script to follow. Instead, they were allowed to think for themselves, a dangerous prospect under ideal conditions. They sent Biden out to take questions not vetted in advance and it was another humiliation. The sight of an eighty year old man struggling to do the basics is symbolic of the empire. Like Biden, it is old, senile, and operating on the fumes of past glories that never really happened.

This is not the first time the ruling elite have fallen for their own rhetoric. Back in the Obama years, they were sure the summer of 2010 was going to be “recovery summer” for the economy. They even had a campaign all ready to go. That ended the same way the Afghan withdraw ended. Recall that Biden promised this summer would be the end of the Covid panic. Everyone would get to party again. The prophesies of the new religion have a bad habit of never coming true.

Of course, the big lesson in all of this is that a small, dedicated minority can win against all odds if they refuse to surrender. The irony of the American foreign policy establishment not remembering the story of David and Goliath is one of those things that tells us something about the people in charge. They are just so sure they are on the right side of history, that they never take a moment to consider their role in it. They were the Goliath this time and the Afghans were the David.

Granted, the American military would happily abandon the rules of engagement they labored under in Afghanistan when it comes to whiteness. You can be sure General Milley has a speech ready about how white rage is really a part of some secret connected between white people and the Taliban. That said, men living as they did when Alexander the Great was in Afghanistan fought the mighty U.S. Military to a draw and then drove them from their lands. An inspiration to us all.

In the end, this is how dying empires look from the inside. The people at the top fear self-examination, so they commit to a zealous form of the mentality that made the empire possible in the first place. The empire and their place atop it are the center of their belief system and no disconfirmation will shake that belief. They will die with the empire that makes them possible. What comes next is up to the people who survive the inevitable collapse in order to fill the void of empire.

The Great Mistake

Posted on June 16, 2021 by thezman

Note: I was on the Restoring Order podcast last night. It was a lively conversation about events of the day. The audio on my end was not good for some reason. It was like I was making an old fashioned long distance call. Patrick has me connect with Skype, which is probably the reason for the poor sound.

The renewed interest in the origins of the Covid virus is a good reminder of several threads running through the modern political discourse. The most obvious being the reactionary nature of the establishment Left. Trump pinned the blame on China, so the establishment Left made it their mission to defend China. This fit in well with their corporate paymasters, who are happy to wash the feet of the Chinese government in exchange for access to Chinese consumers.

Of course, that leads into another subplot to the modern age. The willingness to submit everything to the marketplace, real and imagined. This is a root cause of the current crisis in America. Just because it is good for the economy in the short term to do business with China does not mean it is good to do business with China, but in the hyper-marketized world of today, no one questions it. Like everything else, right and wrong is left to the market to decide.

The hyper-market also leads to another issue. When all that matters is the highest bidder, then nothing matters. In the case of Covid, many of the people responsible are Americans, who are doing business with China in order to get around the ethics rules in the United States. You see, when morality is decided by the highest bidder, things like patriotism are just another commodity. Even Ben Shapiro’s version of patriotism is just another item to bought and sold.

The Chinese have figured out that they can buy all the technological vigor and creativeness from the West. They just invite researchers from the West to work in Chinese labs with the promise they can follow their curiosity, free of the ethical limitations placed on them in the West. Manufacturers took the same bargain, except the promise was they could pollute the environment and treat the workers like it was the 19th century. Apple led the way on this decades ago.

This was something the Soviets always tried to exploit. Their interpretation of Marxism told them that Western capitalists cared only for quick profit, so they could be easily bribed. The West would sell the Bolsheviks the rope they would use to hang the capitalists. It did not turn out that way as in the 20th century morality was still a thing that operated outside the marketplace. Even capitalists felt a loyalty to their people and their country. Most of them did, leastways.

That was then and this is now. China is like a kid in a toy shop these days, as everything in the West is for sale at discount prices. Everything must go and no offer will be refused. Need a member of Congress who sits on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence? Short on cash? No problem! How about someone to run cover for letting a deadly virus loose on the world? You are in luck, as they are in stock and priced to sell! Everything must go!

All of this disguises a much more serious problem. Anyone familiar with Chinese business practices knows that following the rules is not their thing. You see, China has always been a culture that is organize around power. The people with power threaten severe punishment for breaking their rules. Success is usually defined by navigating around the rules, while avoiding detection by the powerful. Violating the rules is not just a necessity. It is a way of life.

This is why China is the world’s most prolific patent thief. It is why they are the world’s primary exporter of counterfeit goods, as well as narcotics. Nothing about these practices strike the Chinese as wrong. In fact, they think it immoral to respect the abstract rules and conventions that form the basis of prohibitions on making knock-off consumer goods and illicit drugs. Western ethics, as far as the Chinese see it, are just more rules to work around for fun and profit.

When the product is women’s fashion, it is tolerable. When it is the rules governing serious biological agents, then it is a different matter. Now we can add the handling of nuclear technology to the mix. The one thing we can be sure about with this story is that the Chinese are lying about it. The second thing we can be sure of is they are paying American journalists to repeat the lies. The way to bet is this nuclear “accident” is a lot worse that being reported.

A culture that prizes rule-breaking above all else is not compatible with technology that requires strict adherence to a specific set of ethics. When those ethics are rooted in a long cultural tradition, the conflict is even more acute. If you think Covid was bad, imagine a Chinese version of Chernobyl. Instead of giving the world a case of the sniffles, she starts pumping out radioactive waste. A society that is willing to pollute its own air is not going to flinch about dumping nuclear waste.

China has always been a coercive society. The central authority has total power and there is no way to challenge it. The West has always been based on persuasion, but willing to stoop to inducement. When truth telling does not persuade, then propaganda is used to persuade. When that fails, then offering rewards or punishments is what works. These two types of societies are not just alien. They are incompatible with one another at every level.

It is becoming clear that welcoming China into the global “community” was a terrible blunder by the West. Assuming the American empire figures this out, it will take a generation to reset the relationship with China. If the next lab leak lives up to the Covid hype, then generations of obsequiousness will prove to have been a great mistake of the empire. If it is something worse, then we will know that the truly great mistake happened in the fall of 1969.

The Endless War With Russia

Posted on April 20, 2021 by thezman

Without formally announcing it and for reasons no one has bothered to explain, the American empire has declared war on Russia. That is the clear message the Biden administration is sending with the new round of sanctions. They have also kicked out some Russian diplomats. More importantly, the US is telling US banks they cannot have any dealings with companies working on Nord Stream 2, the big natural gas pipeline the Russians are building to supply gas to Europe.

In fairness, the war with Russia started before Biden was installed. You could argue it started back in the Bush years when they convinced the former Soviet republic of Georgia to annex parts of South Ossetia. The Bush people were making noises about adding Georgia to NATO, which did not sit well with Russia. From their perspective, this was a provocative act of aggression. It was correctly seen as an effort to surround Russian with states loyal to the American empire.

Team Obama promised to cool things down with the old enemy. They made a big show of the “big reset” with the Russians. Hillary Clinton did a photo-op with the Russian foreign minister in which they jointly held a big red button labeled “reset” on which each had their hand. Of course, administrations come and go, but the usual suspects that actually run imperial foreign policy never change. By the end of the Obama years, they were claiming the Russians rigged the presidential election.

Under Trump there was a real effort to call off the attacks on the Russians, but the usual suspects responded to that with two impeachment efforts. First there was the coup effort led by the FBI to get Trump removed. The claim was that he worked with the Russians to rig the election. Then there was the effort launched by the usual suspects in the State Department. It is easy to forget but pretty much everyone involved in the first impeachment trial had a connection to Ukraine.

Now of course, Ukraine is at the center of the Biden administration’s efforts to start a shooting war with the Russians. They have encouraged the Ukrainian president to declare his intention to return the Crimea to Ukraine, by force if necessary. Then they offered military guarantees in the event of war with Russia. The Russians have responded by putting their military on high alert. They have moved forces onto the border of Ukraine in preparation for a shooting war.

As if the guarantees to Ukraine are not enough, the Biden people immediately deployed long range nuclear bombers to Norway. They put bombers in Portugal as well and raised the strategic posture at the same time. Russian and NATO air forces are having regular incidents on the border of Russia. These are deliberate provocations. The hope is there is an incident that would warrant escalation. The fact that this happened as soon as Biden took office says it was not the doing of his people.

One obvious conclusion that can be drawn from this now two decade long effort to start a war with Russia is the President no longer controls foreign policy. Obama and Trump tried to normalize relations with Russia, but both were thwarted by the semi-permanent foreign policy establishment. Many of these people now have financial dealings with Ukraine, which goes ignored by Congress. Joe Biden is a vegetable and his family is literally on the payroll of the Ukrainians.

Of course, there is the madness of it all. Why is the American empire trying to start a war with Russia? One reason is money, of course. The usual suspects would like to raid Russia for natural resources. The parasitic financial system of the West is running out of domestic capital to burn, so Russia is seen as a new opportunity for plunder. There is also the grudge they have with Putin, who put an end to the looting. No one holds a grudge like the people running the American financial system.

There is also the fact that the foreign policy establishment is packed to the gills with people who were selected for their hatred of Russia. This goes back to the Cold War when foreign policy was simply about Russia. When the Cold War ended, those people did not retire. They did not stop selecting for people who shared their views on Russia and have the same cultural connections to the East. The maps have changed, but the people who see themselves as map makers has not changed.

One not so obvious reason is the need for liberal democracy to have an enemy. Like the Athenian Empire 2,000 years ago, the American empire is the result of conflict and as such it is designed to have an enemy. For half a century, the Russians were the enemy around which the empire was organized. They tried to replace Russia with Islam, but the Muslims proved to be a poor adversary. Cultural inertia has brought the American empire back to Russia as the enemy they need to survive.

Ironically, this new fight with Russia could turn out to be the disaster that seems to be the natural end of all empires. A shooting war with Russia will end in disaster for the empire because it would be a disaster for Europe. Russia would seize Ukraine in short order and this would result in an air war in the skies over Europe. Then Syria would unleash a million migrants from the south. It would be a catastrophe that would be blamed on Washington, one that would probably end NATO.

This is why the Germans are not rushing to support the empire on this. Germans have been dealing with the Russians for a very long time. they will be dealing with Russians long after the American empire is gone. Backing the yesterday men of Washington does not look like the best move for the Germans. America’s Varian Disaster may not be a military defeat, but instead be a diplomatic catastrophe. This attack on Russia could be what breaks the NATO coalition.

There is also the domestic situation. Despite the blaring from the regime propaganda organs, the Biden regime has limited support among Americans. Half the country thinks he is illegitimate, while the other half is instinctively dovish. They are also more focused on the domestic pogroms against their enemies. A war now would be a disaster domestically for the empire. Half the country would be rooting for the Russians, just because they hate the American government.

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