Category Archives: Politics

The God Of The Clouds

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One of the things about the current age that gets little attention is the contradiction we see every day in the political system. On the one hand, most people think the political system is captured by minority interests like corporations, the military industrial complex, ideological fanatics and so on. At the same time, the political class puts an enormous amount of time and energy into convincing the public. If public opinion plays little role in policy, why do the politicians care what we think?

First off, there is the question of whether public opinion matters. Paradoxically, many of the people who claim government is controlled by minority interests put a lot of time into convincing people of this theory. They also make claims about the nature of the minority interests that are absurd. For example, white men are claimed to have special access to power, when this is clearly not true. For this class of critic, “minority interests” are whatever bogeyman haunts their fevered dreams of utopia.

Ten years ago there was a big study to determine if public opinion matters when it comes to the making of public policy. By the standards of social science, the data set was massive and comprehensive. The result was that economic elites control public policy, not majority will. If rich people want something from government, they tend to get it barring overwhelming public opposition. If the people want something but rich people oppose it, then the politicians are happy to ignore the people.

To the realists, this makes perfect sense. In every area of life, rich people have far more influence than regular people. This has been true since the first guy drew a line around some land and declared sole ownership of it. Wealth is power because it can be used to buy influence, but also because people tend to respect money. It is a sign that the person is successful and therefore has qualities we should respect. Even the most radical leftists respects rich people. Just as George Soros.

This answers the question as to who really controls the political system in the general sense, but it does not cover everything. Do the economic elites of the West want a long war in Ukraine? Maybe in the United States the war profiteers see it as a good thing, but European industry has been getting killed by the war. Similarly, environmentalism benefits some profiteers, like Elon Musk, but it harms many others. Clearly, rich people can be cajoled into supporting things that harm their interests.

That starts to get at the question as to why the ruling class puts so much time and effort into tricking the public. If you look at lists of the richest people, the one thing lacking in the vast display of wealth is diversity of opinion. You do not find immigration opponents, for example, in the Fortune 1000. There are no zealous Christian Nationalist or even serious opponents of Zionism. There are degrees of enthusiasm for the latest thing among the elites, but everyone supports the latest thing.

No one, not even the sociopaths who populate the economic elite, wants to think of themselves as the bad guy. They may embrace a mock version of being the devilish figure in the drama of life, but no one thinks of himself as the devil. No matter your station in life, you are the hero of your story. What supports this is others taking your side in some moral cause. It is why people like sympathy and forgiveness when they do something stupid or get harmed. It means they are the good guy.

The reason our elites chant about democracy so much now is they not only believe what they are saying, but they have to believe what they are saying. In order for them to maintain their sense of being the hero, they need some moral authority to bestow upon them the blessings that are reserved for the righteous. The support of their fellow elites is not enough. In this age, the righteous have the support of the masses, so that is why our elites invest so much in winning public approval.

The god of democracy is not the god of the people. It is a process that turns the people into a fickle god that must be cajoled and bullied in order to give its blessing. In order for our rulers to see themselves as heroically leading mankind to the next phase of human existence, they need the people to be cheering them. Like the deranged rulers of Rome who staged games to win public acclaim, our rulers stage mass media events, public festivals like elections and public relations campaigns.

In a way, our rulers are acting the same way as the people who go door to door handing out information about their cult. On the one hand, these people think they are giving away something beneficial. They are offering people a way into their cult. On the other hand, they are looking for confirmation. If even a few people show some interest, it confirms to them that their beliefs have some merit. The conversion process in all religions is for the benefit of the converted.

Unlike a religious cult, our rulers resent this relationship. It is a weird aspect of the morality of democracy that it corrupts the soul of the believer. They begin to hate the god they are forced to worship. Our elites hate the marketplace, whether it is the economic market or the political one. It is why they seek monopoly. If they can so dominate the market that they always get majority support, they have tamed their god into always being a loving and approving god.

Of course, nature abhors a monopoly, so that means our elites are always in a contest with the Old Scratch of democracy, which is dissent. As long as there is one person out there who disagrees it remains possible that the opinion of the elites is invalid or even immoral, despite the level of support. Much of the venom directed at the public by our elites is the result of this reality. Final confirmation can only come when the final dissident is wiped from the scene.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe famously picked “Democracy: The God That Failed” for the title of his book promoting private government. It contains many of the themes in this post, but it misses one essential point. Democracy is not a god that fails the people or even society, but a god that can never satisfy the ruling elite. Every ruling needs a god, as they must stand on a moral framework. All societies start from a moral basis and it must feel permanent. Democracy is simply too fickle for the task.

In the end, that is why our rulers and their servants in politics and the media so frantically chase after public opinion. It is why vast amounts of capital are invested into tricking the people. Like the rabbis looking for loopholes in the Talmud, our rulers are always looking for some way to get justification from the public for their actions and their position, but they always find dissidents. For them, democracy is a god that always brings the devil with him to undermine their efforts.

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Failure Management

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Note To SubscribeStar Users: I was told that their payment processor made some changes, so that screwed up some of the renewals. The usual suspects continue to harass credit card processors who do business with normal people. It is a hassle, for sure, but a reality of life these days.

The term “deep state” has been overused and abused to the point where it is meaningless, but the concept behind it remains useful. Conceptually, it simply means the permanent state, the individuals and institutions that lie behind the facade of our democratic processes and institutions. Politicians come and go but there is a permanent managerial elite that runs the important institutions. The C.I.A., for example, does not change after a presidential election brings in a new president.

That is what makes this long piece in the New York Times about the C.I.A. operating in Ukraine an interesting bit for regime-ology. There is not a single punctuation mark in that piece that was not vetted by the C.I.A. Senior people in the agency wanted that piece in the “newspaper of record” so they made sure the senior people at the paper put reliable stenographers on the job. It is why it reads like a marketing piece extolling the accomplishments and capabilities of the agency.

The part that is getting the most attention is that the agency has been operating secret bases in Ukraine since the U.S. led coup in 2014. The newly installed spy chief of Ukraine was in contact with British and American spy agencies on day one, which is a strange thing to make public. On the one hand, the agency wants the world to know that they have been trying to undermine Russia from bases in Ukraine for a decade, but at the same time they were invited into to do the work.

One way to read this is as a signal to Russian intelligence that when the war is over there will be no hard feelings. It is just the old game. While the agency did the task assigned to it by the political side of Washington, the agency bears no ill-will to the Russians with regards to Ukraine. In the article there are several examples of how the agency supposedly told the Ukrainians that they were not so conduct assassinations or terrorist operations inside of Russia.

That sounds like something out of a John le Carré novel, but like the rest of permanent Washington, the C.I.A. is still stuck in the Cold War. This is not the first time that stories planted by the agency have made the point that the Ukrainians have been operating outside the parameters set by the C.I.A., so it is fair to assume that this is a point that is important to the agency for some reason. It could have to do with internal politics between factions in Washington.

Another way to read this is as a way to prepare the ground for the very bad news that is coming out of Ukraine this year. Again, that Times piece reads like marketing material for the agency, which may be intended to shield it from criticism when Project Ukraine falls apart this summer. They can tell the politicians that they did what they could to help Ukraine, but the warmongers in the State Department, along with their puppets in Ukraine, screwed it up.

This interpretation is supported by the panic we are seeing in the political class over the last couple of weeks. Chuck Schumer is now threatening House Speaker Mike Johnson over the Ukraine money. The people controlling Joe Biden are putting on a full court press to get that money, even threatening a government shutdown. In Europe, French president Emanual Macron held an emergency meeting of EU countries to discuss sending troops from EU countries to Ukraine.

The reason for the panic is the war has taken a bad turn. The Russians broke through a key stronghold called Avdeevka. This was a fortified city that secured a key part of the front in the Donbass. This has opened up a hole in the Ukrainian defenses and has the Ukrainians scrambling to build new defensive lines further West. In the north and the south, the Russians are slowly taking ground and inflicting heavier and heavier damage to the Ukrainian army, which is showing signs of breaking.

While no one expects the Ukrainian army to collapse anytime soon, it is clear that it is no longer about if the army will break but when it will break. They are running out of men to fight, as the losses have been staggering over the last year. They also have critical shortages of essential materials like artillery shells. This is why Macron is floating the idea of sending troops to Ukraine. It is also why NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg wants Ukraine to target Russian cities with missiles.

Meanwhile, the public face of the Kagan cult that controls the State Department is making the rounds, threatening to kill Valdimir Putin. Victoria Nuland is doing what these people always do and that is double down on failure. As far as Nuland is concerned, the deteriorating situation in Ukraine is proof that the West must pour even more resources into the Ukraine project. If it means nuclear war with Russia, that is just the price that must be paid to finish the job in Ukraine.

What all of this suggests is that the people operating behind the curtain are deeply worried about project Ukraine. Things may be worse than what the general public can see through social media and local reports. That New York Times piece extolling the glories of the C.I.A. is a glimpse of the jockeying that is going on behind the scenes to see who takes the blame for the failure. More precisely, to see who gets to blame which politicians for the failure of Project Ukraine.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











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The Losers Morality

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Note To SubscribeStar Users: I was told that their payment processor made some changes, so that screwed up some of the renewals. The usual suspects continue to harass credit card processors who do business with normal people. It is a hassle, for sure, but a reality of life these days.

Note: For those looking for a good book to read, check out this new novel Faction: With the Crusaders, which is the follow on of the writer’s first novel called Faction.

On Sunday, a US Air Force member named Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire outside the Israel embassy to protest the war in Gaza. This being the modern age, he live steamed the act on Twitch. According to the BBC, he had e-mailed a message to the Antifa media operators with whom he was associated. “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people,” the email read, warning it would be “highly disturbing”.

The video is disturbing for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which it shows a man burning to death, which is one of the most horrific ways to die. It also shows uniformed police doing nothing but pointing their guns at the man as he burned to death, because that is the only thing they know how to do now. Finally, someone rushed up with a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, but the cops still stood there ready to shoot the poor man if they could find a reason to do it.

The point of this act was to get attention to the cause, which is the Israeli war on the Palestinian settlements in Gaza. Antifa, with whom Mr. Bushnell was associated, is anti-Israel, so they have taken up the cause of Gaza. Despite claiming to be antifascist, the anarchist subculture is surprisingly antisemitic, something that gets left out of the reporting by the media. It is a good example of how the Washington regime will align with anyone, no matter how bizarre, if it suits their needs.

The logic behind this protest is that it so shocks the sensibilities that no one can ignore it, thus attention is brought to the cause. There is no disputing this. Before Aaron Bushnell self-immolated, no one other than his family and friends had any reason to know his name, but now he is global news. To a lesser degree, his reasons for doing what he did are also global news. For the anti-Israel movement around the world, Aaron Bushnell is now a martyr and hero for the cause.

That is where things get complicated. For those already in the pro-Gaza camp, Mr. Bushnell’s actions are noble because they elicit pity. Michael Tracy tried unsuccessfully to make this point on Twitter. You are supposed to see the act, feel pity for the man suffering and then think about his reasoning. Presumably, once you understand his reasoning, you will not only embrace his reasoning, but embrace the moral claims that he is making with regards to Israel.

Of course, you could just as easily look at his act, feel pity for the man and then conclude he must be insane. After all, reason tells us that all living creators seek to preserve their lives by any means necessary. This we can observe in nature and within ourselves as living things. Therefore, a human seeking to die is probably suffering from mental defect and needs protection from himself. Perhaps his cause is just as crazy as the man killing himself in the name of the cause.

There is something else. Why should the moral claims of a loser, a failure, a maniac, have greater appeal than the moral claims of the people supporting the stronger party in the Gaza conflict? In other words, why do the losers have a claim on our sympathy rather than the winners? Why should our sympathy have any role in determining the morality of the two parties in the conflict? Why are both sides appealing to our pity and sympathy rather than some other emotion?

In no other area of life is this logic applied. In a war the winners are celebrated and the losers are punished, usually by their own people. When the Ukraine army falls apart, the political leaders of Ukraine will flee for their lives. The leaders of NATO countries will be mocked and scorned by their own people. We see the same in sports competition, where the winners are feted and the losers and excoriated. Why in this case should the morality be turned on its head?

The truth is, it is not turned on its head. The reason this sort of protest, and most protests, fail to sway the public is they appeal to a loser’s morality. The protestors are saying, in effect, that they cannot win the debate with the public and they cannot win the argument with the rulers. They are powerless, so no one addresses their concerns, which leaves them with nothing by an appeal to your sympathy. This always fails as people naturally support the winner and reject the loser.

This is why most of the commentary online about the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell was mocking and joking. Even in that Michael Tracey thread the replies are sarcastic, despite his obvious appeal to pity. It turns out that appeals to pity only work on those who see themselves as pitiful. To everyone else, they just reinforce the notion that the losers deserve to lose, which is why they act like losers. For most people, Bushnell’s act proves his cause is not worth considering.

It is an important point about politics. Democratic politics are theater and self-pity makes for bad box office. Successful political movements project strength and confidence, not weakness and self-pity. That means all public displays, including protests, should project strength and confidence. Aaron Bushnell would have served his cause better if he went about punching Israelis in the nose. At least then he would have been seen as a threat and people will respect a man who is a threat.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











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Their Huey Long Crisis

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about the realities of antifascism and the people attracted to it and a post about the furniture rackets. The Sunday podcast was a no go as I was tied up on some projects. Subscribe here or here.

Former President Trump won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, clobbering Nikki Haley by twenty points. Haley, of course, was the governor of the state and pitched herself as the local favorite. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the anti-Trump elements in the Republican ecosystem thought Haley had a chance to upset Trump in her home state and thus bring about the collapse of Trump. Instead, Saturday should be the end of the Haley campaign.

Whether or not Haley drops out of the race is an open question. The Koch network announced they would stop funding this ridiculous project in order to focus on other ridiculous projects. Typically, this sort of announcement is a signal to the rest of the donors and the media that the project is finished. The usual suspects, however, never abandon a project. They still think we should have troops in Iraq in order to spread democracy, so they will stick with Haley.

Nevertheless, the attention will now shift from Haley to the prospect of Trump securing the nomination and what can be done to stop it. That last part is the important part, as the usual suspects never accept defeat. Paul Ramsey has a short video up explaining the various lawfare shenanigans they have ready to stop Trump. What lies ahead now is not the normal progress toward the candidate securing the nomination, but a series a political witch trials intended to jail an opposition candidate.

Because the courts are thoroughly politicized now and controlled by the regime, there is no question about the results. Trump will be convicted in all of them, probably before the end of the year. Some convictions will come before the November elections, as the regime thinks this will sink Trump in the polls. Alternatively, it will force the Republican party to remove Trump from the ballot. Nothing says democracy like removing the opposition candidate from the ballot.

As an aside, you have to admire the cynicism of the people who think these cases will erode Trump’s support. Their starting point is the assumption that Trump voters respect the system and have high enough moral standards that they would not support a man convicted by the system. Therefore, if the usual suspects can rig a few court cases against Trump, these decent people will be tricked into dropping their support for the enemy of the tricksters and go along with the trickster option.

Putting that aside, as Paul Ramsey notes in his video, we are heading toward a crisis that is without parallel in our history. Trump will be facing prison time, but either have the nomination or have the delegates to secure the nomination. That and he will be the favorite to win the general election, assuming the general election is not as corrupt as it was the last time. What we have seen thus far is Trump will not quit and his support will not drop due to the lawfare shenanigans.

A systemic crisis is when the options available within the system to the people in charge of the system are all viewed as unacceptable. In this case, the Republican Party can be forced to break its rules and remove Trump. This is not just the death of the party, but the death of the Potemkin opposition the regime requires. They can put Trump in jail and hope he loses, but that makes him a martyr. They can call off the dogs, but that means admitting it was all a lie from the start.

The thing that political insiders see that regime media is not allowed to admit is that Trump is probably gaining in popularity. South Carolina is an open system, so Democrats were free to vote in the Republican primary. The regime spent millions to get the black vote out to vote for Haley. In other words, like New Hampshire this was closer to a general election voting pool. Trump still crushed Haley, which suggests the TDS card is no longer working as it did in 2020.

The closest we have in our past to what we see happening with Trump is Eugene V. Debs, who was a socialist agitator a century ago. The Wilson administration put him in jail for heresy, which they called “sedition” at the time. Today they call it insurrection, but it is the same idea. The obvious difference here is that Debs was not a popular national figure like Donald Trump. Debs was a fringe character without much sympathy from the public, even before his antiwar activities.

The irony here is the people rubbing their hands together and salivating at the prospect of Trump behind bars just spent the last week carrying on over the death of Alexi Navalny, as if he was the Gandhi of Russia. In other words, they dream of doing to Trump what they accuse the Russians of doing to Navalny. In fact, they accuse lots of enemy governments of acting this way. It is a good reminder that these people have no souls and therefore no conscience, so no sense of shame.

An important thing to keep in mind with all of this is that the people leading the revolution at the top have drawn one lesson from the past. That lesson is they can never relent until they reach their goal. They see the failures of their past subversions as the result of a failure to go all in on the project. It is why they never accept defeat and continue to push forward against all evidence. We are seeing this with Ukraine, where their response to failure is to double down.

What this tells us is the brewing crisis over the Trump nomination will not frighten the people responsible for it into finding a way out of it. Instead, they will no doubt see it as an opportunity for even more lawless shenanigans. The New Hampshire results had them double down on South Carolina. The South Carolina failure will have them go all in on the lawfare schemes. If those fail then one can only imagine what comes next, but they no doubt have something ready just in case.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Preference Collapse

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Note: For those looking for a good book to read, check out this new novel Faction: With the Crusaders, which is the follow on of the writer’s first novel called Faction.

Liberalism comes in for a lot of abuse recently, mostly due to the abuses done by the current ruling class in the name of liberalism. People are hauled away and thrown into dungeons in defense of democracy, international rules are violated in defense of the rules-based order and all of it is accompanied by endless lying. It is no surprise that a growing number of people inside and outside the West are starting to think that maybe the problem with liberalism is liberalism itself.

Of course, the place to start is the meaning of liberalism. If you tap the word into a search engine you get the stock definition. “Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.” Note that the only part that the current ruling elites in the West mention is political equality, but they have a different view of equality from the rest of us.

Another way of thinking about liberalism is the idea of permission. Despite claims by some, liberalism is a peculiarity of Western European people. It grew out of the medieval experience where permission was the rule. Up and down the social order, every was required to seek permission from those they served, even for personal issues like marriage and property transfers. Your preferences were controlled by the range of freedoms granted to you by your superiors.

Liberalism, in contrast, seeks to broaden that range of freedom so the individual can make decisions based on his preferences. A man does not have seek permission from his lord to give some of his land to his brother or a total stranger. As long as the new owner abides by the rules applied to all land owners, he is free to take possession of the land if he so chooses or not take possession of the land. His refusal or acceptance is based on his preferences, which he does not have to explain.

Liberalism is often framed as increased choices and therefore an increase in your freedom to choose, but that is not quite right. If you go into the cereal aisle and select an item from the dozens of choices, but must prove to the cashier that your selection is the best one for you, that is a vastly different world from one in which you pick whatever you like for any reason you like. The ability to not choose at all, for any reason at all, is vastly different from a world where you must choose.

In other words, the core of liberal order is not the proliferation of choices or even the right to make a choice, but the right to make a choice or not make a choice without seeking permission or having to explain your decision. You get to live your life by your own lights and you do not have to explain yourself to the authorities. It is only when you violate the law that your motivations come under review and even there is only as a mean of establishing your guilt or innocence.

This is important for understanding the current age. Everywhere you turn now you are expected to explain your preferences and subject those preferences to what the prevailing orthodoxy pretends is the crucible of reason. Even trivial things, like what you choose to eat, often require an explanation. Everyone feels to need to explain their preferences, as if they fear operating outside of official permission. Outside of a narrowing list of personal choices, your preferences are not your own.

One reason for this is the moralization of American society. Since the end of the Cold War, everything and everyone is subject to the proselytizing of the high priests of the new religion who are always increasing the scope of their work. The reason the vegan makes sure to tell the world she is a vegan is she thinks this safely puts her on the side of the righteous. The mask wearing during the Covid hoax was another example of how trivial things can become holy sacraments.

Another reason for the collapse of preferences is the collapse of the liberal order since the alleged triumph of liberalism in the Cold War. Some as yet understood restraint on managerialism during the Cold War broke down with the end of the Cold War and ever since the managerial class has sought to increase it supervision of the people, thus collapsing the individual domain of preference. In retrospect, the end of the Cold War was not the end of communism, but the end of liberalism.

This collapse of the domain of preference is changing the people. Look at an issue as simple as immigration. The choices should range from no borders, as is current policy, to firm absolute borders with no immigration. You as a citizen should pick your preferred option and feel free to advocate for it. Further, you should be free to say you oppose immigration because you prefer not to live with foreigners and have no need to explain your preference, but that is not the case today.

Listen to anyone you know talk about a topic like immigration and you can see them first struggle for why they prefer whatever it is they claim to prefer. On the one hand they want to be seen as preferring the moral option and on the other hand they feel the need to explain themselves when no explanation should be required. It is hard to know what anyone truly prefers when it comes to public policy, because everyone feels they need permission for their preferences.

One reason we seem to heading toward the abyss is that the range of choices keeps narrowing and the consequences for falling outside those narrow options becomes more draconian. The reason for this is preference has been all but eliminated from the collective consciousness of the people. The land of the free is a pasture where the people herd closer and closer to one another, and anyone who strays from the flock is quickly consumed by the wolves guarding our democracy.

What this suggests is that managerialism, left to run its natural course, becomes something like the what we see with insecure managers in corporation. Fearful of their own position, they proliferate rules and enforcement, locking everything down until no one in the company has any range of motion. The company becomes increasing brittle as it sheds talent and begins to fail. The collapse of individual preference in modern society is a sign of distress in our corporatized society.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

A Price For Everything

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about being a jerk, old people sniffing deli meat at the grocery story and the Sunday podcast. Subscribe here or here.

A tenet of the old right was that some things are too important to a society to be subjected to the crucible of reason. Traditions, for example, not only bind people to their ancestors, but to one another in the shared understanding of the past. Treating traditions as mere superstition inevitably leads to their abandonment and the loss of their associated social capital. A society without tradition and history is a temporary, ad hoc collection of deracinated individuals.

Reason is not just questioning and demanding proof. The marketplace is a manifestation of reason in the exchange of goods and services. Sellers compete with one another to attract buyers. Buyers compete with one another through the mechanism of price in order to determine the best good or service. Reason states that if you have a competitive and open market, you end up with the best products and services winning over those of lesser quality or higher price.

The old right would agree to the theory behind open market economies but point out that some things are too important to subject to the market. The moral claims of a society, for example, should not be up for bid. The marketplace would no doubt decide that slavery in certain areas is the superior option, as it has for all of human history, but we have decided that owning other humans is immoral. Therefore, we do not make this moral claim subject to the crucible of the marketplace.

We are getting a real-world glimpse of this with regards to the war in Ukraine which the Western managerial elite insist is a moral crusade. Helping Ukraine, they say, is proof that we worship the god called democracy. The Munich Security Conference just ended and speaker after speaker insisted that the god of democracy demands we empty our wallets to help Ukraine. The Danish prime minister went so far as to say that the West must give all of its weapons to Ukraine.

No one really knows, because the cause is too important to waste time on accounting, but the West has supplied Ukraine with weapons and money in amounts many times more than Russia is committing to the war. Hundreds of billions have been given to Ukraine with hundreds more lent though various contrivances. The sorts of people who perform at events like the Munich Security Conference are fond of talking about how the arsenal of democracy is going to save Ukraine.

The trouble is the weapons supplied to Ukraine have not made much of a difference and in many cases have been worthless. French supplied armored vehicles are nothing more than expensive death traps. British Challenger tanks are great on the parade route but unsuitable for actual combat. The German Leopard tanks were sitting ducks against Russian artillery in the summer offensive. Despite the economic advantages, Western weapons have not made much of a difference.

The reason gets back to the tenet of the old right. There is a story in the German tabloid Bild that takes a look at how Germany is supplying armored vehicles. Instead of producing or selecting vehicles best suited for the war, it is an elaborate financial scam that profits the arms dealers and their foreign suppliers but results in expensive and poorly suited vehicles to Ukraine. The German taxpayer is paying three- and four-times retail for equipment that is useless in the war.

To give some perspective, the Russians probably spend the equivalent of one hundred thousand dollars for an armored vehicle. The Germans are paying six hundred thousand dollars, but for the wrong sort of vehicle. This is a pattern that repeats across the Western supply chain to Ukraine. Either suppliers see a chance to unload useless junk at inflated prices or their top-line equipment, in the case of Western tanks, is proving to be ill-suited for the actual fighting.

The Russians, meanwhile, work from that old right tenet. Some things, like fighting land wars on their border, are too important to be subjected to the marketplace. There is competition within the Russian military industrial base, but the winners are not picked by the invisible hand of the marketplace. They are picked by the demands of the military for the situations they are facing. One reason Russian arms tend to be simple compared to American arms, is the military doctrine of the Russians.

It is tempting to think this old right idea applies only to something narrow like war fighting, but war fighting is a consequence of other factors. After the Cold War, the Russians did not embark on a process to ship their manufacturing base to low-cost countries as happened in the West. One reason for that is the Russians do not make profit the singular goal of their society. They set about modernizing their manufacturing base and now they are reaping the rewards.

This is a pattern we see all over the West. Open borders, like slavery in the ancient world, are profitable for society, but it erodes the social capital. It attacks the customs and habits of the people, the things that bind them together as a people. Once you have monetized the social capital of the people and carried it off to vaults in New York, it is no longer available when the crisis comes. It turns out that national borders should not be subject to the crucible of reason.

The crisis surrounding Ukraine, and make no mistake that crisis is spilling over into the West now, is a microcosm for what awaits the West. The reason for that is Western managerial elites turned their societies into for-profit enterprises. The decision point in every matter is whether it profits the managerial elite. Even the abrogation of ancient rights is merely a defense of the bottom line. It turns out that when everything has a price, nothing has value, not even your society.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

The Old Fear

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One of the many oddities of this age is the way in which the political class talks about itself, something they do incessantly. For example, the Senate just passed a giant foreign aid bill to give your money to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the military industrial complex. This is a more bloated version of the “bipartisan” deal that included a few pennies for the border patrol and enshrined open borders. This time they stripped out the border money and expanded the foreign aid.

Now, normal people could be forgiven for wondering if the senators have had some sort of collective mental breakdown. The reason the “bipartisan” deal on immigration failed was not that it was too tough on immigration, but that it did nothing to address the issues causing the flood of migrants. In fact, it promised to make the situation worse by limiting what could be done by future presidents. In other words, the answer was to fix the border provision by making it much tougher.

Again, this is the way a normal person thinks. The Senate drew an entirely different conclusion from the storm of protest. They concluded that what the people really wanted was more of the same on the border and even more of their money going to foreign actors and the war machine. Imagine someone makes you an offer on your car and you say the offer is too low. They come back with an even lower offer. That is what we are getting with the Senate at the moment.

Putting that aside for second, look at how the senators supporting this ridiculous bill are talking about it. They are not talking about the bill at all. Instead, they are talking about their heroism in passing the bill. Mitch McConnell went to the floor to say that history would remember his historic vote in favor of the bill. Chuck Schumer talked about himself as if he was Leonidas. By getting this massive giveaway passed in the Senate he was saving the free world from disaster.

The same sort of thing happened in the first round. What little they said about the immigration portion of the bill was easily disputed by looking at the text of the bill they foolishly released to the public. Most of time was spent talking about their personal heroism in crafting the bill. Schumer did the media rounds tell the various stooges about how he labored like Hercules to overcome one obstacle after another in order to get this bill to the Senate for a vote.

There is nothing normal about how these people talk. Politicians in all times exaggerate their roles in things when times are good. They also exaggerate the role of opponents when times are bad. We expect politicians to do this. What is novel today is how they celebrate themselves like heroes for failing to do basic things. Every Washington pol is now his own hagiographer. At this rate, Schumer will be crafting a bill to have his face added to Mount Rushmore.

One possible reason for doing this is the same reason a failing company ramps up its marketing with promises of the product being new and improved. The theory is if you say it enough times people will believe it. The Senate is a clown show so they are heaping praise on themselves thinking that maybe people will not notice that these guys arrive at work in a Volkswagen Beatle done up as a giant mouse. The consultants are telling the senators they need to build their brand.

On the other hand, it is possible they believe it. These are the same people who thought people yelling at them about the terrible immigration bill were angry that it could possibly slow the flood of migrants. They were the same guys who thought using Senator Howdy Doody as the point man in immigration was brilliant. When you are making these errors, anything is possible, so it is quite probable that these senators view themselves as world historical figures.

Another possibility is that these senators are so insulated from our reality that they are now operating in the realm of fantasy. When was the last time Chuck Schumer talked to anyone who lived among the Dirt People? All of his social interactions are with the Israel lobby and Wall Street. The overlap here is immense. They certainly do think Schumer is a hero to his people, just not our people. You can go through the roster of long-serving politicians and see a similar degree of insularity.

Listening to these feeble old men sing their own praises, one cannot help but think of the Politburo in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Like Washington, Soviet politics had come to be controlled by a class of geezers. Their primary concern for a long time had been keeping their spot. The result was they surrounded themselves with sycophants good only for praising their bosses. The result was the political system was incapable of responding to the brewing crisis.

This is what we see with immigration. The solution is not complicated and most of the tools are available to bring the crisis under control. The old bulls in Washington, however, are primarily concerned with Speaker Johnson, who has come to represent a generational threat to them. The media stooges have acknowledged as much, saying that the Senate is hoping to box Johnson in with this bill. In other words, it is geezers thinking they need to fend off the youngster.

This would explain the self-praise. The geriatric ruling class fears the next generation more than they fear death. They have plenty of younger flunkies around to help guard their position and tell them they are the best. The old party hands have now reached that point many old men in the business world reach and that is to claim their experience trumps the talent and vigor of their young challenger. The result is Mitch McConnel now thinks he is Cicero.

The comparison to the Soviet Union brings with it a warning. Decades of insularity did not just result in an ossified ruling class. It also retarded the development of a succeeding generation of party men. When the icy hand of death started to thin the leadership ranks, what replaced them were men good at currying favor but not good at anything else, so the result was disaster. If Speaker Johnson is our Gorbachev, the next decade promises to be quite grim.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

The Madame’s Shadow

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Note: For those looking for a good book to read, check out this new novel Faction: With the Crusaders, which is the follow on of the writer’s first novel called Faction.

One of the underappreciated aspects of the French Revolution is how the ruling class system became detached from the overall social system. The people in the ruling class were ignorant of what was happening in the country and not just the social unrest, but the economic changes that were coming. The people were just as ignorant about why their rulers were doing the things they were doing. Pre-revolutionary France was two black boxes left to guess about the contents of the other.

The United States is entering a similar period. Much of what makes up internet political content is either a reaction to some new emission from the managerial elite or an effort to contextualize those emissions. No one can be sure why the ruling class is doing the things they are doing, as it is not tied to anything normal people experience, so the Dirt People are left to produce their own explanations. Dirt People political culture is a debate about what in the hell is going on in the clouds.

The people in charge could very well be holographic projections from an alien world as far as anyone knows. Their actions and statements rarely correspond to their stated interests or the social interests. You see it in this big drama they are staging for themselves over the failed Senate bill on immigration. Somehow, official Washington convinced themselves that bundling Israel money, Ukraine money and open borders money was a winning formular with the Dirt People.

The reason they bundle these things together is one faction decides to make a trade with another faction in what is called log rolling. Congressman X wants money for a project and Congressman Y wants money for a different project, so they agree to support each other’s projects, even if they should be opposed to them. In this case, neocons go along with some sort of border reform, so they get more money for their efforts to start a nuclear war with Russia.

That is the theory, but in reality, the bill both parties in the senate thought was a winning compromise was something entirely different. It was the open borders crazies getting support from the blow up the world crazies so they could both get billions to fling open the borders and blow up the world. There was nothing in the bill that the voting factions of either party would want or even care about. No one wants open borders, and no one cares about Ukraine or Israel for that matter.

As soon as the senate bill failed, the demon known as Chuck Schumer told the world that he will be working with Mitch McConnell to come up with a way to give money to the blow up the world faction. This gives us a clue about what was really going on with that senate bill. We already have open borders, so that faction was not getting much from any deal, so the real issue was smuggling in the Ukraine money. Israel has check writing privileges at the Fed, so they get their money automatically.

That explains what was really going on here, but it raises a question. Why are these people so obsessed with Ukraine? We know the Kagan cult has enormous sway in Washington, probably due to their work with Epstein. We know that Ukraine is a money laundering operation and much of the money ends up in the pockets of connected people in Washington. That all makes sense, but we also know that this project is doomed, so why are they still obsessed with it?

The writing has been on the wall with regards to the Ukraine war for a long time, especially after the NATO planned offensive failed last summer. The reason General Miley is fishing now is he promised a smashing success. Instead, he delivered scenes of NATO armor on fire in the fields outside the Russian lines. Self-interest should have told Washington that it was time to find a way out of this mess. Instead, they remain singularly obsessed with this project.

People will be tempted to say it is money and power, as those are simple answers that let you stop thinking, but these people have the money and power. If Mitch McConnell wanted more power, he would never have gone along with this ridiculous bill and instead railed against the Ukraine project. That is good politics, especially in an election year when he could see his party return to the majority. Money and power say the republicans should be doing the opposite of what they do.

That brings us back to those black boxes of the French Revolution. A healthy society has a feedback loop between the people and their rulers. The practical interests of the people feed the rulers through various mechanisms like the media, voting, public protests, and economic behavior. The moral claims of the rulers, the things you ought and ought not do, flow down those same channels to the people so that the behavior beneficial to the elite becomes a habit of mind.

In pre-revolutionary France, this loop was broken. The economic interests of the elite were still based on a feudal understanding of the world, so they could not read the economic activity of the masses, which were shifting from that model. Similarly, elites were blind to what was happening in the newly emerging bourgeois class that was arguing about liberal ideas in salons and public houses. The feedback loop had broken and that left those two black boxes.

We have a similar problem in modern America. The media used to provide signals to the Cloud People about what was happening with the Dirt People. Now the media is poorly tuned repeaters of things said by the Cloud People. For example, they are all chanting the word “chaos” now, as if they received a memo instructing them to weave the word into their public performances. This makes the Cloud People feel good, but it also blinds them to what is happening with the Dirt People.

Similarly, Dirt People continue to get bizarre instructions through the economic and media channels about the constantly changing moral code. For no reason at all the Clouds begin to rumble and some weird new idea rains down on people. One day it is men in dresses falling from the sky. The next day it is Jewish dwarf in a green jump suit demanding money to fight the Russians. When the Dirt People look into the clouds, they now see a funhouse mirror.

There are two ways this can end. One is some people in the Clouds realize what is happening and organize a revolt against the other side. This is mostly what happened in the late-1960’s and 1970’s. One group of Cloud People revolted and ushered in a period of reform. The other way it ends is the Cloud People rally in defense of their position against what they perceive to be a peasant revolt. This inevitably leads to a peasant revolt and the collapse of the system.

What that senate bill suggests is that there is no one in the managerial class aware of the problem, much less interested in solving it. James Lankford, the Oklahoma senator who negotiated the deal with Schumer, should not even be in the senate much less brokering such a deal with an arch demon like Schumer. Lankford should be back organizing swim lessons at Bible camp. If there were any reformers in the system, they would have stopped this before this point.

The question that remains is whether or not the American system is past the point where reform is possible. There are libraries of books describing such inflection points in the French Revolution. The past is always uncertain, so there are lots of debates about when things became inevitable in revolutionary France. In the moment, however, no one seemed to know because no one could know. In other words, we will know it is too late when Madame Guillotine is set up across from the Capitol.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Plotting The Collapse

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On 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin went on television to announce the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Russia is a legalistic society, so Putin did not declare war or even say it was an invasion, as those terms carry meaning within Russian law that would trigger other parts of the law. We are now fast approaching the two-year anniversary of what everyone involved thought was going to be a quick and largely bloodless path to a negotiated settlement.

For the last eighteen months Russian leaders have talked about the conflict lasting years, as it is now a proxy war between Russia and its partners and the United States and the vassal states of the West. Some have suggested this war is like the Thirty Years War in that it will radically change the moral and political order in Europe, eventually seeing the United States exit Europe entirely. Others see this as another sign that the West is in crisis and headed for dark times.

Putting aside the big picture aspects of the war, things may be running ahead of schedule, at least from the Russian perspective. The first big item to start the year is the stalemate in Washington over Ukraine funding. To the shock and horror of the neocons and their fellow travelers, the public is not interested in the issue, which means there is no risk to opposing more money for Ukraine. The result is money for Ukraine is probably a dead issue for 2024.

That will have enormous implications for Ukraine. The billions flowing from Washington to Kiev do three important things. First, Zelensky uses the money to buy loyalty, as he is Washington’s bagman. This allows him to buy off the various factions in Ukraine and make sure pro-Washington people are in the government. It is why he has faced little opposition to cancelling the elections. Those inclined to speak out against this have either been bribed or jailed by those being bribed.

That brings up the second thing the money does for Ukraine. Those dollars are not just dumped on Ukraine. Instead, the dollars are converted into Ukrainian hryvnia, which are then deposited into the Ukraine banking system. Of course, Ukraine also gets euros from selling energy products and agricultural products to the EU on special deals and those are converted to hryvnia. This is what allows Kiev to pay government employees and mask the money printing to pay the soldiers.

The final piece of the puzzle is the corruption around converting dollars and euros into weapons that can be used in the war. Even regime media has been forced to admit that a lot of the weapons have ended up on the black market. No one knows how much has been stolen or who is doing the stealing, but Ukraine is a pirate’s cove now, with privateers, official and unofficial, stealing everything they can. Even Kiev is getting worried about the degree of theft.

If the flow of dollars stops or even significantly declines, all three legs of the Ukrainian side of the racket will snap. We may be seeing the first signs of this in the drama between President Zelensky and General Zaluzhny. It has been known for months that Zelensky wants to fire Zaluzhny, but so far, he has not been able to do it. Zaluzhny simply refuses to cooperate by resigning or taking another position. Instead he posts pics of himself with the leader of the ultra-nationalist faction.

When the president of a country wants to fire his top military officer, the officer usually resigns in order to save some face. In some cases, the civilian leader will fire the man in order to make a point. Truman fired MacArthur in order to send a message and underscore the subordination of the military to the civilian government. When the civilian leader cannot fire the top military commander and that commander is openly challenging the civilian leadership, there is a crisis.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the head of the Wagner organization repeatedly challenged the authority of the Russian government. He even went so far as to stage a ceremonial march on Moscow. The Russians foolishly thought they could tolerate the behavior of Prigozhin until that point. They realized their error and it was not long before Prigozhin’s plane was falling out of the air in pieces.

You also have to add in the fact that Ukraine is a lawless, corrupt kleptocracy now flooded with weapons and soldiers. Last year, one of Zaluzhny’s lieutenants was blown up by a grenade hidden in a gift intended for Zaluzhny. Someone tried to poison the head of the secret police, Kyrylo Budanov, but missed and poisoned his wife and some of his staff instead. Of course, the Russians mysteriously got the coordinates of Budanov’s location and tried to take him out with a missile.

In such conditions, it is not hard to see how the end of dollars from Washington could set off a political crisis. If that is not enough, the war is going poorly for Ukraine as the Russians slowly ramp up the pressure on all fronts. According to Ukraine, they need thirty thousand new recruits a month to keep up their numbers, which means they are losing a thousand men a day in this war. Many of those men are trained, experienced soldiers who cannot be replaced with raw recruits.

As of this writing, the Russians have broken through one of the biggest strongholds in Ukraine, a place called Avdiivka, or often spelled Avdeevka. Since 2014 the Ukrainians have been building this place up with tunnels, bunkers, mine fields and heavy weapons, to be an anchor point of the front line. Reports from Ukraine say the Russians have entered the city and have trapped Ukrainian forces. That would mean a starving out operation will be followed by a surrender.

There are similar stories around smaller fortifications along the front and all of it is due to the shortage of men and material. According to Ukraine, they have mobilized close to a million men so far and they have plans to mobilize half a million more. Those kinds of losses are added pressure on a political system that has major cracks. If the money runs out, it is not long before some factorions think about what sort of deal they can cut with the Russians to end the war.

Collapse is like the famous Hemingway line about bankruptcy. It happens a little at a time and then all of a sudden. Armies collapse slowly over time then they begin to surrender in great waves. Governments collapse over a period of time, punctuated by crises until the principles either flee or end up dead in a final crisis. The current crisis in Ukraine could be just one chapter, but not the final chapter. Maybe the Republicans will produce the money and save the day.

Regardless, all of this points to a catastrophe down the road and probably right around the November presidential elections, which will make for great drama. Eventually the reality of Ukraine will come home to Washington, no matter how hard they try to pretend it does not exist. Like all bankruptcies, the failure of imperial foreign policy proceeds a little here and a little there, all leading to a point when the whole project collapses, maybe taking the empire with it.

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!

Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Political Onanism

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a film I did not like, a post about code-switching and the Sunday podcast which remains a morning edition for now. Subscribe here or here.

Carl Schmitt famously said that “the political is reducible to the existential distinction between friend and enemy.” The shorthand you hear in dissident circles is that politics is about friends and enemies. You can see this in your own life when it comes to some issue with which you have been on the opposite side of a friend. That person may now be a former friend if the issue was important at the time. It is why families often avoid talking about politics during the holidays.

A practical aspect of this reality is that political activism should always seek to harm the opponent and boost your side. An action that makes the other side look bad is good activism and it is even better activism if it also makes you look good. Of course, bad activism is that which boosts the enemy and harms you. The Charlottesville rally in 2018 turned out to be disastrous activism for the alt-right. It rallied their enemies and gutted their support in the broader community.

Life is not always so cut and dried. Generational politics, for example, often feels like good politics to the people doing it. Whether it is young people moaning about old people having had it easy or old people moaning about young people having it easy, the people doing it always feel good about it. A Nick Fuentes feels like a hero when he makes fun of adults for being adults. He thinks it is good politics because it brings in money and gets his young fans excited.

Of course, this goes both ways. Matt Walsh from the Daily Wire often makes fun of Zoomers for being whiny and soft. Recently, a young girl posted a video of herself crying about having to work forty hours a week and still not having money to live like she did in college so Matt Walsh made sport of her. The young people who always complain about the boomers then piled in to tell him he was a horrible person for not empathizing with the young girls in the video.

At a personal level, generational politics is good as it makes money for the people doing it, but at another level it is bad for their overall political mission. The only people engaged in generational politics are white people who are either in white identity politics or aligned with it. Nick Fuentes casts himself as a white identitarian, but he spends a lot of time mocking white people. Matt Walsh opposes antiwhite politics, but like Nick Fuentes, he spends most of his time attacking white people.

You will note that the people who control the culture are fine with this sort of politics, despite it coming from people they hate. In popular culture you will never see a young black guy calling his grandfather a boomer. You will not see an old Jewish guy laughing at his grandson’s student loan debt. For the people who control the centers of cultural production, generational politics is only for white people. It is one part of their antiwhite pogroms that have come to define popular culture.

Generational politics is not politics at all but a form of political onanism. It is not only a fruitless activity, but it also discourages the sort of politics that could bear fruit. It is no different from the war of the sexes business, where feminists and anti-feminists seek to pit white males against white females. Whatever the truth of the mutual critiques, it is not an activity that can lead to anything other than temporary ecstasy. It is a form of politics that can never lead to good activism or any activism.

For example, look at the recent trend of attacking Reagan. Critics correctly note that he signed off on immigration reform. He also ushered in economic reforms that now feel like bad ideas, especially for young people. This critique of Regan usually ends with angry shouting at boomers for having enjoyed the good times that followed the reforms of that period. The boomers are bad people for having enjoyed a good stock market and low interest rates over the last forty years.

Let us assume that Reagan and his supporters were evil people who knew what they were doing would harm their grandchildren and great grandchildren. Let us also pretend that the boomers all agreed it would wreck the country for their children and grandchildren who they would live to see. Even if you could prove this, what would be the point of doing it? The most you get from it is the momentary satisfaction of shaking your first at an imaginary version of the past.

The reason to care about the past is to understand how you reached the present and to have some sense of what comes next. Understanding the politics around the Reagan era immigration policies is about understanding the nature of the people behind the just proposed immigration reform bill in the senate. Chuck Schumer put that together because he hates you and he has always hated you. There is no talking him and his allies out of hating you. He is the forever enemy.

There you see the problem with generational politics. The young people trembling with anger over the thought of Ronald Reagan are focusing on their grandparents rather than the people who finked on their grandparents, the same people who are now trying to close the door on America, by opening up the borders. It is a politics that turns old friends into imaginary enemies and enemies into fans cheering the people attacking one another in the arena of generational politics.

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