Lessons From The Bolsheviks

It is fascinating in a way how so much of the current crisis parallels events in Europe a century ago, despite the many differences. This is supposed to be the peak of liberal democracy, but it feels more like the dying embers of the old aristocratic order that evolved out of the 19th century in response to the French Revolution and the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Then as now, the one thing agreed upon is the current order is not satisfactory. The old order has failed.

The past is never a perfect parallel to the present, but the many points of comparison between then and now is what matters. The rise of industry forcing people into cities, altering the power arrangements in European societies set off massive cultural changes that resulted in two great industrial wars and the rise of communism. The technological revolution is having the same impact on the West today. The world after the internet is a very different place from the world before it.

The interesting thing about the Bolsheviks and the communists in general is they were the only people trying to come to terms with what in the world was happening and why it was happening. The parallel to today is that it is the dissident subculture in which there is any serious thought about what is driving the ongoing crisis. Establishment efforts like Caldwell’s The Age of Entitlement, want to keep the analysis within the liberal democratic order. The fault lies with people, not the system.

Like the old commies in the industrial age, it is dissidents in the technological age who look further upstream. Like those old commies, there is a theoretical side to the analysis and a practical side, even a sense of urgency. Industry brought both new economic relationships, but also mass movements of people. Millions of Jews, for example, left the Russian empire for America. Similarly, technology has created new power relationships and set up a massive movement of people.

What studying the events of a century ago shows is that the great chain of causality is true in the long view. Russia, for example, has kept reverting back to being Russia, despite the changes in political economy. We see this quite clearly with China today, which is a high tech version of the Tang Dynasty. In the short run, massive changes to political economy can ripple back all the way to the nature of the people. The short run in the context of history can be a few lifetimes.

This is another parallel between then and now. The communists saw the great hand of fate in their history books. Their claims about political-economy were based in a historical understanding that said the arc of history bent toward socialism. The dissident knows that today is the result of the millions of decisions that have happened up to this moment on the timeline. A man is the sum of the mating choices of his ancestors and a people is the sum of all the choices that made the people.

That does not mean that the future is fixed. Nothing is inevitable other than the fact that people have always been wrong about the future. That is another great lesson for us from the communists. They were so sure about how things must end that they did not think much about being wrong about it. You see that with what passes for left-wing radicalism today. They just know that without white people utopia will descend on the land, but how that is supposed to work is never considered.

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


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Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a 15-percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening
  • 02:00: Theory & Practice
  • 12:00: Partisan Opportunists (Link)
  • 22:00: Political Organizing (link)
  • 32:00: Rules & Standards (Link)
  • 42:00: Tomorrow Belongs To No One
  • 57:00: Closing (Link) (Be Like Me)

Direct DownloadThe iTunesGoogle PlayiHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/pxC_ywa-Ev0

J. D. Vance

It is tempting to judge a man by his enemies, especially if his enemies are the sorts of people who should be the enemy of the decent. Logic seems to dictate that if the worst people are opposed to someone or some idea, then there must be some merit to that person or idea. The worst people operate exclusively from self-interest. What is good for the worst is probably not good for the rest, so therefore what is bad for the worst must be good for the rest, if only that it diminishes the worst.

The great lesson of the George W. Bush years is that the worst people can hate someone who deserves to be hated. Every far-left crank in America was howling in agony about the Bush administration. Their complaints were every bit as insane as the people making them, so decent people just assumed Bush was a good guy. It turns out that sometimes the enemy of your enemy is just another enemy. Bush, of course, was a disaster, the worst President in American history.

That is something to keep in mind now that J. D. Vance has decided to run for office in his former home state of Ohio. Vance was always something of a curiosity, having gone from humble beginnings to the managerial elite, but seeming to maintain a connection with his roots in the lower class. His book Hillbilly Elegy was a hit among the chattering classes, always looking for some authenticity. It was also popular with normal people who found it and Vance to be genuine and thoughtful.

Now Vance is seeking to ride the wave of populist enthusiasm and white fright to a political career. At first this would seem logical, but just a few years ago he was an anti-Trump guy, like all the people he now criticizes. It made sense back then. He was enjoying publicity from the sorts of people he spent his entire life trying to copy. He had gotten rich thanks largely to the fact these people helped him along as he went from the Marines to Yale Law then to Silicon Valley.

He is singing a different tune these days. He is on the Trump train and talking quite sensibly and credibly about the issues that concern white people. In fact, he sounds far more sensible than Trump. As a result, the worst people have started to attack him for his alleged apostacy. The gargoyle of neoconservatism, Mona Charen, came out last March with an attack on Vance, calling him and white people jackals. That is an interesting bit of projection from a blood-thirsty warmonger.

Now we have this post in the Atlantic from Tom Nichols, or as he prefers the commoners to refer to him, “Five Time Jeopardy Champion” Tom Nichols. For those unaware, Tom Nichols is America’s leading expert on being wrong about everything to do with foreign policy. From his perch on Twitter, when he is not reminding us that he is a super genius and a five time Jeopardy champion, he tells us that we have all let him down and no longer deserve a man like Tom Nichols.

Writing often betrays the image the writer projects and this no truer than in the case of Tom Nichols. He tries to portray himself as an intellectual tough guy, but his writing style suggests he is a hysterical teenage girl. It is not hard to imagine that Atlantic post being submitted on tear-stained paper with some of the “I’s” being dotted with little frowny faces. The post is supposed to be about Vance, but it really about Nichols and his hurt feelings about the populist rebellion.

Tom Nichols, like David French, is the sort of person the Founders warned about when discussing democracy. They pointed out that democracy attracts the worst people who then appeal to the worst instincts of the people. Liberal democracy is the playground of narcissistic fanatics whose only interest is in flattering themselves with the applause of the mobs. Suddenly, all of the worst people are bearing their fangs at J.D. Vance, so normal people naturally feel disposed towards him.

Of course, another quality of liberal democracy is that it spawns false opposition like a shark grows teeth. Just ten years ago Conservative Inc. spawned any number of imitators to steal the energy of the Tea Party. We see the same thing happening with the different populist groups. The usual suspects are furiously trying to co-opt the Nick Fuentes thing with boy-band quality alternatives. American Moment is what old Cloud People think young Dirt People will find compelling.

With that in mind, it is wise to be cautious about anyone in the ring claiming to speak for the great dispossessed. That is one lesson of Trump. Politics is like a high-end brothel where even the most virtuous are going to tempted. If Lucifer were tasked with creating a political system to stock Hell with souls, he would head to Washington to get tips from the masters. He would probably lose his soul in the bargain. The point is, even the best of men is no match for the worst of systems.

That said, Vance is making the sort of noises familiar to dissidents. He is clearly familiar with the dissident subculture as he has used phrases like “red pill” when describing his political transformation over the last five years. He hangs out with Tucker Carlson, and he is bankrolled by Peter Theil. Neither man can be called a dissident, but they are not lobbing R-bombs at us. Vance defended Nick Fuentes, who has not been favorable to J.D. Vance, which suggests Vance is more than just hologram.

Politics for dissidents is always about advancing dissident ideas, so judging Vance is all about his utility in that cause. Like Trump, he is willing to drag taboo subjects into the public domain, which is always good for dissidents. Unlike Trump he seems to have a better feel for his potential base. Vance is also a younger man who can speak to younger people, who do not respond to flag waving. Unlike Trump, Vance is not a man lamenting the loss of the past, but the loss of the present.

You never know what is in a man’s heart, so Vance’s sincerity remains a question, but he will be useful. Even if Vance is a dissident at heart and sweeps to a landslide victory, nothing changes for us politically. The same parasites will be calling white people jackals and pushing cultural genocide. There is no voting your way out of the defects of democracy, but democracy can be a bus dissidents ride to the next stop. As is always the case, the Vance phenomenon is an opportunity.


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


Historical Fiction

“The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable” is an old Soviet era joke about the party’s habit of rewriting history to serve the current moment. Like so many things Soviet, it applies well to the current American regime. Not only do they rewrite the past, but they also magnify events from the past to make them seem like they just happened yesterday. They diminish more recent events so they seem distant. The old communists were amateurs compared to liberal democrats.

The rewriting of history is best done by people who have a certain historical outlook and a facility for language. It is a unique sort of sociopathy that allows them to create highly complex models of the past that are decorated with well-established facts, but are otherwise filled with distortions and outright fabrications. Erasing a man from a picture and banning any mention of him still leaves a hole. Rewriting the man’s history, weaving it into the story of the opponents solves two problems.

You can see how this works in this hysterical screed from the left-wing propaganda site the Bulwark. At this point it is inaccurate and dishonest to put the neoconservatives on the political Right. They agree with the establishment Left on everything except some foreign policy items. They actively make war on the establishment Right. Of course, they are even more hostile to dissidents, nationalists, and populist than the most deranged lefty. Neoconservatives have returned home.

Putting that aside, note the natural way in which the writer builds an intellectual framework that fits the needs of the moment. Within in that framework are all of the usual bogeymen that haunt the minds of these people. We have various internet characters who have tormented them. There is the Russian conspiracy hoax and the foaming at the mouth Trump hatred. Of course, Evangelicals are in there. The only thing missing from the list of bad actors is Tsar Alexander III.

All of this is designed to dirty up the Claremont Institute, which is the only establishment Right operation to take seriously the crisis of the present. They operate American Greatness and the site American Mind. Of course, they have been willing to look at Trump and the movement that carried him to office in a serious way. Michael Anton was one of the first establishment figures to make the case for Trump in 2016. This is why the fevered minds of neoconservatism despise them.

The psychopathic hyperventilating is amusing at a certain level, but it obscures the really important nugget at the start of the screed. “The Claremont Institute was founded in 1979 by Peter W. Schramm, Thomas B. Silver, Christopher Flannery, and Larry P. Arnn, all students of Lincoln scholar Harry V. Jaffa.” Then just a bit later, “Jaffa’s work on Abraham Lincoln was groundbreaking, and can be credited for recovering a sense of Lincoln’s intellectual seriousness.”

It is easy to skip over that as the cult of Lincoln has become a fixture in both the establishment Left and the establishment Right. Both left-liberals and right-liberals claim Lincoln as their own. National Review trots out Lincoln every time the left-liberals are banging them over the head about race. You see, Lincoln was a Republican, so it means it was right-liberals who saved America from slavery! They do the same ridiculous thing with MLK, even though he was a Marxist.

Forgotten is how this cult of Lincoln was created and who created it. That person is Harry Jaffa, who should go down as history’s greatest fabulist. He is responsible for what is known as the second founding thesis. You see, the real founding the country was not with the Constitution. That is just words on paper to solve practical issues facing the newly independent colonies. The real founding of the country, the moral and spiritual founding, was with the Declaration of Independence.

According to Jaffa, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” is the primal roar of the new people, a new concept of a people. The Founders wanted America to be a land of universal equality. That was the ideal they setup for themselves. The Constitution fell short of that because of the needs of the moment.

The Civil War, however, was not a continuation of a cultural dispute dating back to the English Civil War or even a war over slavery. It was the second founding. The old errors and sins of the first founding were washed away with the blood of millions so America could continue toward that original ideal. Slavery was abolished and the Constitution was modified. Those modifications have been used ever since to alter the country in pursuit of the founding ideal contained in the Declaration.

This is also where we get the proposition nation stuff. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” You see, that original rhetorical flourish was actually a call to create an entirely new type of nation, a proposition nation based on ideas, rather than people. It is not hard to see the mischief that has come from the embrace of this rewriting of history.

In a slightly different context, John Derbyshire noted that some people have an unnatural skill at creating “elaborate, plausible, and intellectually very challenging systems that do not, in fact, have any truth content”. Harry Jaffa and his followers were such men. For that matter, Strauss falls into this camp as well, but that is a topic for another day. Because the second founding idea provided the right-liberals with a fig leaf over the race issue, it has become their creed.

That does not change the fact that this is nonsense, but like Stalin rewriting history, it is powerful nonsense. In fact, the current antiwhite pogroms aimed at extirpating all signs of whiteness are rooted in this. The advocates justify their cultural genocide on the grounds that it is part of this process to reconcile America with its long failure to live up the original idea. Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo are really just modern day manifestations of the Founders, dreaming of a proposition nation.

At the core, the dissident project is about peeling back the layers of lies and fabrications like second founding theory. History is a story of a people and our story has been rewritten by strangers who see us as enemies. Correcting the record is not just an exercise in trivial exactitude. It is about re-centering a people on the foundation of their past so they can once again reach for the stars. If the folks at the Bulwark want to know “what they hell is happening” there is the answer in a nutshell.


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


The Time Warp

One of the weird things about this age is how certain groups of people remain locked in a form of psychological stasis. Their views of the world remain the same as they were at some point in the past. For some it is always 1985 and the biggest fear is the commies will get control. Some are locked in 1968 where they are trying to keep corporate interests from crushing the working man. These people live like modern people, but their worldview remains in the world of the past.

From the perspective of dissidents, the most obvious of these groups are the civic nationalist types. Long time users of Gab have suddenly been made aware of these folks after Trump and Trump fans were dumped from Twitter. The J21’er is a person who signed up for Gab in January of 2021. They decorate their profile with patriotic symbols and far too much information about themselves. Politics for them is right out of a civics textbook from the late 1980’s.

These people are not just lost in the past. They have plenty of examples in the media who are right there with them. This post in the American Conservative is a good example of the type. It is a long piece about the future of conservatism that reads like it was written in 1992. No mention of immigration, the  most important issue facing the world at this time. No mention of race and racial politics, which has convulsed the country since the end of the Obama administration.

The writer is a regular at the site so it is safe to assume his views reflect those of the editorial staff. It links to many other sites that wave the conservative flag, so it is in tune with the sensibilities of that old tribe. This is the right world to use as they exist like an isolated tribe in the Amazon, unaware of the world that exists outside their remote villages. This is one of the links in the post. It is a debate about conservatism by people who should be in a museum exhibit about the 1990’s.

It is not just a phenomenon of the legacy Right. The BreadTube phenomenon is an example from the Left that parallels the one on the Right. These are people promoting things like socialism, communism and anarchism, but from the perspective of the 1970’s when such topics were actually discussed by adults. They want to steer young people away from identity politics, but they also want to combat what they call “far-right extremism” that appears on YouTube and other places.

This is where you see the time warp. The people they consider to be far-right are people like Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson. Not only that, they stick to an old 1970’s liberal view of politics when the Left was sure their ideas were so convincing, they could engage with their opponents and win every time. Like their analogs on the other side, they seem to have missed the last couple of decades. They are unaware of the fact that people get fired from their job for holding the wrong opinions.

Of course, the establishment Left itself is trapped in a time warp. The people banging on about structural racism and white supremacy also bang on about the dangers of corporate media and corporate power. They do so on global corporate platforms, often from the corporate offices. If people actually wore the labels of their supporters, the street protestors would look like NASCAR drivers. Their little outfits would be festooned with corporate sponsors. “This riot brought to you by Amazon!”

Listen to the people behind the Critical Race Theory stuff and they carry on as if it is 1955 and the imaginary Jim Crow stuff is real. They claim to be fighting the racism of whites and the oppression of the white power structure. They are weirdly unaware of the fact that none of this ever existed or exists today. Everyone with the least bit of power is on their side. Their people they are attacking are without any representation in the halls of power. For the antiwhites, time stopped in 1968.

Some of this is just human nature. People stubbornly cling to old ways of thinking about things out of habit. There were still supporters of the Whigs long after they had disappeared into the past. Ideology provides structure and a way to understand the world, so abandoning it is difficult for some. Until they find a suitable replacement, they stick with the old views. We see this with the Trump phenomenon. Many jumped on it simply as a way out of conservatism.

Then we have demographics. White people are the oldest tribe in tribal America now, so whites are going to be slower to adapt to the new reality. The fans of Ben Shapiro are old people mostly. He is what they hoped the future would be like and what they imagine it was like in their past. For someone who is 70 years old, it is tough to accept that all they fought to preserve will be washed away. The dream of returning to the civic nationalist paradise is better than facing present reality.

Reality is the thing that does not go away when you stop believing it. The people locked in these time warps will eventually return to this part of the timeline. Again, you can see this on Gab. Many of those J21’er have quickly adapted to their new home. Every time a bell rings a new dissident is born and every day the bells are ringing, thanks mostly to the behavior of the ruling class. The behavior of the government the last year has collapsed many of these time bubbles.

Something similar is happening on the Left. Jimmy Dore, for example, is a man who considers himself on the Left. Yet, he is every bit as skeptical about the radicals as the typical dissident. Glenn Greenwald is another good example. Matt Taibbi is another guy who is having an awakening. These are people looking around and coming to the realization that their old views on things no longer track with reality. The old Left is starting to have their own red pill moment.

Political transformation is like the old line about bankruptcy. It is slow at first, often glacial, then it happens all of a sudden. The individual begins to break free from their time bubble and then all off a sudden they have their awakening. As is always true about the behavior of people, some are too timid to look up. They fiercely cling to their ole ideas like a dog with a bone. Their fight to remain trapped in the past is a weird sort of conformation. Some people will just be lost to time.


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


Monsters

Note: This week’s Taki post is related to today’s post, but it is a more high brow look at the subject of ideological fanaticism. There is a podcast up behind the green door which delves into the same topics.


Arguably, the first casualty of the antiestablishment uprising that began toward the end of the Obama administration was David French. Unlike most of Conservative Inc., French was too dumb to avoid mixing it up on-line with the smart kids who create clever memes and troll establishment media figures. He became the poster boy for what came to be known as the cuckservatives. As Tucker Carlson noted, French is the sort of person who can only exist in the world of non-profit Conservatism.

What makes a dullard like David French stand out in the bland nothingness that is the conservative intelligentsia is his unbridled narcissism. Most of Conservative Inc. knows they are just overly paid time-servers lucky to have comfortable lives. That is why they make sure to never say a discouraging word. David French, on the other hand, imagines himself to be a world historical figure. He does not believe in much, but he firmly believes in the importance of David French.

That may seem like a bit much, given that he is a dumpy old bald man with the voice of Mickey Mouse and the IQ of Goofy. Remember, this is a man who serious thought about running for president in 2016. That’s right. He spent a month doing a Hamlet routine at NRO over whether he should run an independent campaign to block Trump in the general election. Only a narcissistic fanatic could imagine himself going from C-list pundit to national political figure.

This is what brought French to the attention of most people. Prior to his embrace of smarmy anti-Trump crankery, he was just the guy you skipped over when scanning a conservative website. He was the nobody’s nobody. Then he piled into the clown car known as the NeverTrump movement. His obnoxious blend of narcissistic fanaticism and comical mediocrity made him the face of conservatism. For many, David French became the prime example, of what went wrong with the Right.

This over-the-top zeal was not a new thing. Back in 2010 when he was promoting himself as the most Bible-believing Christian on earth, he and his wife flew to Africa and brought back an African child. You see, his version of Christianity told him he had to go and save the world. Sure, it meant stepping over any number of orphaned kids in his own backyard, but all the cool people were adopting Africans, so America’s greatest Christian could not settle for a local orphan.

Ever since he has been waving the kid around to remind us of his goodness. Here we have a piece in the far-left site The Atlantic, where America’s greatest Christian, a Chris-like figure himself when you consider it, tells us we are letting him down. Here he is on NPR, repeating the same slanders. You see, owning an African was not the boon to his career that he imagined, so it must mean America is full of bigots. America is just not good enough for a benevolent figure like David French.

Now, the CRT debate offers him a chance to wave around his trophy kid and lecture the rest of us about his goodness. Here he is arguing in The New York Times that the people who oppose Critical Race Theory are bigots. To prove he is America’s messiah, he partnered with a black guy who hates white people, a Jewish guy who claims Trump is actually Hitler and a mulatto who hates himself. You see, America’s leading Christian is uniting the races in the war against the bigots.

In that Times essay, they claim that banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory and its variants is wrong because we are supposed to have an open society. This demands an open debate of ideas. French writes, “These laws threaten the basic purpose of a historical education in a liberal democracy. But censorship is the wrong approach even to the concepts that are the intended targets of these laws.” Just a few days later he was cheering the removal of Nicholas Fuentes from Twitter.

David French regularly reminds us that in addition to being America’s leading Christian, he is also the William F. Buckley of this age. He is the voice of conservatism fighting against the dark forces of intolerance and populism. Say what you will about Bill Buckley though, he would have noticed if his biggest fans were on the Left, but the praise and applause is all that matters to French. To the narcissist, attention and praise are the narcotic of their existence. The source is unimportant.

It is tempting to dismiss David French as just another a public buffoon, but there is something darker at work here. French not only waves the African kid around like a bloody shirt, but he clearly worries more about her future than the future of his natural born white children. He has never been moved to write a long essay about his concerns for their future as minorities in nonwhite America. His position on CRT suggests he does not think about them at all. They don’t serve the cause.

It is difficult for normal people to understand the mind of someone who uses their children as props in their narcissistic fantasies. Similarly, it is hard for normal people to understand the mind of the those who enthusiastically commit atrocities in the name of their cause. These are people who thoroughly confuse their own identity with that of the cause they serve. Their narcissism tells them that everything they do is justified, because they are a world historical figures.

Critical Race Theory is by definition cultural genocide. This is the appeal to the sorts of people who think starting over from a clean slate is the best course. The people who look at every human tragedy as a chance to advance their cause and thus advance their own heroic story are the sorts of people who think the death of a million people is nothing more than a statistic. They are not just consumed by ideology, but driven by a narcissistic fanaticism that excuses all excesses.

C. S. Lewis famously wrote that “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” The sorts of people who torment us for our own good do so with the approval of their own conscience. That is what we see with the antiwhite fanatics pushing things like CRT. Guys like French have no trouble slamming the oven door shut because he never stops believing in his righteousness. History’s greatest monsters were all driven by this same certainty.


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


The New Religion

A common scene in the early medieval period was the whole village being rounded up and brought down to the nearest river to be baptized. Their lord had recently converted to the new religion, so his people would be converted. The primary vector for spreading the new religion was through the ruling class. Missionaries from the Church would meet with the local ruler and attempt to win him over. Maybe money would change hands or promises would be made for support against a rival.

It was not the only way the new religion spread, but it was essential that the rulers be converted if the new religion was going to make it. Read about the early days of Christianity in England and it does not sound very Christian. Monasteries were more like frat houses and the nunneries were their sororities. The Church looked past it because this was what was needed to keep the ruling class on board. They needed the rulers to impose the new faith on the people.

The most famous account we have is from the Venerable Bede, who tells us of the first meeting between St. Augustine and King Æthelberht of Kent. The king would not meet with him indoors, as he thought Augustine could be a sorcerer. The king did not convert to Christianity right away, but he did give Augustine freedom to preach and invited him to reside in Canterbury. The king’s wife was a Frank and probably a Christian already, so we see how women are always a potential exploit.

We seem to be experiencing something similar. Those medieval peasants must have thought the world was going mad at times. One day some men with weird haircuts show up and before long the lord is forcing them to be baptized in a new religion that makes no sense to them. Today the boss goes off to a conference and when he returns, he is babbling about white fragility and structural racism. The whole department is then marched off to be trained in how to hate their ancestors.

Of course, we do not have to go back to the sixth century for examples. It must have felt similar to the peasants of Russia when beady-eyed urbanites with foreign surnames arrived from the city saying that the landlord is dead, and they are now part of a Bolshevik Soviet. The whole language of life was changed in just one generation, which is what we are experiencing today. Our ancestors would be baffled by things like “systemic racism” and pronoun declarations.

The thing is, Christianity stuck around for a long time for two main reasons. One is it adapted to the people and culture. From the start, English Christianity was different from Frankish Christianity. Second, there was an inherent logic to Christianity that made it suitable as an organizing ethos for a people. If you followed the rules, you were just as likely to make it to heaven as everyone else who followed the rules. In other words, there was a limiting principle to keep fanaticism on a tight leash.

The new religion, like various forms of Marxism, is riddled with internal contradictions that inhibit social cohesion. It needs conflict or as the Marxists call it, perpetual revolution, in order to justify itself. Christianity was the lifelong search for God, while these secular faiths are the endless search for the Devil. Of course, these secular religions have no limiting principle. Every believer is in a race to see who can be the most fanatical in their devotion to the one true faith.

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


For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!


Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a 15-percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening
  • 02:00: Reductionism
  • 17:00: The Managerial Class
  • 32:00: The Tenets of The Faith
  • 57:00: Closing (Be Like Me)

Direct DownloadThe iTunesGoogle PlayiHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/hlnkEHG_KuY

The Custodial State

One of the weirder aspects of the Covid panic was how every corporation decided they needed to do their duty with regards to panic. In many respects, they were the primary fear mongers, as people interface with corporations multiple times a day, while it is possible to tune out the government. For most people, the yammering meat sticks in the media are just the background noise of life. The corporation, on the other hand, is the safety rails of their life, guiding them as hey go about their business.

Shortly after the politicians declared mass panic, every retail chain was busy putting up signs, setting up social distancing protocols and training an army of harpies to lecture people about the need to be safe. The banal overhead music was replaced with endless chants about how much they cared and wanted you to be safe. Those declarations were followed by the robot voice telling you to obey the latest edicts from the CDC about social distancing and dousing yourself in alcohol gel.

The weird part about it was not that it was right out of dystopian science fiction movies where people live in high tech penal colonies. What was weird is no one noticed that we were suddenly thrust into high tech day care centers. The fact that corporations would take the lead was just expected. Something similar happened with the antiwhite pogroms launched after George Floyd. It was corporate America leading the war on white people through ads, TV shows, sporting events and movies.

Again, the remarkable thing about this is not that corporate America is hyper-political now, but that everyone just accepts it without notice. Here is a story by Matt Taibbi about YouTube censoring someone named Bret Weinstein. He walks through the travails of Mr. Weinstein and other Covid skeptics who have been harried by faceless censors on social media platforms. It is a weird blend of passive-aggressiveness and technological superficiality. It is Kafka meets Hal 9000.

The thing that Taibbi does not mention is why these companies suddenly think it is their duty to police what people say. All of the heads of these tech firms regular say they have a duty to police what people say on their platforms. The retail chains that decorated their stores with Covid stuff took the same stance. They were doing their duty by pushing you around in their stores. It was not profit or the satisfaction of their shareholders at the top of their list. It was your safety.

We have gone from a world where private companies should have the right to regulate what happens in their firms because property rights are essential, to a world where they must regulate what happens because the public good demands it. In the blink of an eye, all of corporate America is of one mind on all issues and they volunteer to be on the front lines of the fight over those issues. America is now a massive daycare center run by corporations acting like matronly old hens.

It turns out that C. S. Lewis got it exactly right when he said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

The custodial state turns out to be worse than the authoritarian state imagined by Orwell, because there is no face to the enemy. In 1984, it was Big Brother who ruled with an iron fist for his own sake. In the custodial state it is an invisible network of mother hens with unlimited resources. With one hand they dispense the pleasures of life and with the other hand they grab you by the scruff and make sure you eat your broccoli before leaving the table. All we see is the hand, never the face.

Because they are faceless, there is also no way to appeal to their humanity, their sense of fair play or the rules they claim to follow. When YouTube bans you from their platform, they issue a form of “Because I’m your mother and I say so” when you try to appeal their decision. When the bank shuts down your bank account, they make sure to inform you that this hurts them more than it hurts you. Declaring themselves a selfless nanny of the custodial state makes it all right.

The custodial state is the sensibilities of women armed with the weapons and power created by men. This is what lies behind the popular lunacies of Critical Race Theory, wokeness and white fragility. Every one of these is pushed by a thousand perfumed hands as a way to show how much they care for all of their children. Stripped of the Marxist jargon, it is nothing more than a mother standing over her children telling them to play nice and share their toys with one another.

In the Assemblywomen, the 4th century BC playwright Aristophanes described a world in which the women of Athens gained control of the government. Before long the city fell into a chaos that is familiar to us today. Men were wearing their wives’ clothing, ugly women were demanding that men see them as attractive and, of course, everyone was supposed to share their good with the community. In short order the normal rhythms of Athenian life give way to the chaos of female tyranny.

Aristophanes never explained how it ended, because it was just assumed that no such thing could last very long. That was what made the play a comedy. America will soon find out how a gynocratic custodial state ends. Maybe modern people are happy to sink quietly into the darkness of infantilization. Rather than take up their posts in the adult world, they prefer to live like children, a modern Eloi. The collapsing fertility rates and increasing dependency suggest the end of us is a form of crib death.

“‘It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first time I began to realize an odd consequence of the social effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life—the true civilizing process that makes life more and more secure— had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw!”

–The Time Machine


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


The Projectionists

People often join mass movements as a way to replace their own hated identity with that of the group. They immerse themselves in the movement or cause, losing themselves in the identity of the group. Their sense of who they are gets blended with the cause so that they are one with it. It is why their life is quickly organized around the cause they are in at the moment. Not everyone does this, of course, but every mass movement has true believers, people who become one with it.

This is why the true believer reacts to all criticism of the movement as if it were a physical attack on their person. They treat all opposition to their cause as a violent threat, because from their perspective, it is an attack on their person. Once who they are is indistinguishable from the identity of the group, any criticism of the group becomes a threat to their very existence. It is why reasoning with a true believer makes them more belligerent and hostile.

Another consequence of this fusing of identities is that the true believer tends to project onto others the things he hates or fears about the group. Since the very nature of the true believer precludes self-examination, it also precludes a critical examination of the cause they have joined. For the same reason they look at criticism of the group as an attack on their person, they cannot criticize the group. Instead, they project these faults and fears onto some external entity.

A good example is this post from the neocon website the Bulwark. The neocons, of course, have been driven berserk by Trump and the rise of populism. They were sure their scaly tentacles were so tightly wrapped around the Republican Party that it was nothing more than their personal golem. Then Trump comes along and shatters that certainty by sweeping the primaries. Not only that, but he also pointed the finger at them as the reason for why things have gone wrong in America.

This is a good bit of evidence that whatever it was, neoconservatism had transformed into a weird political cult. The first generation had practical reasons for the transition from Trotskyists to Buckley conservatives. They saw that the American Left was getting cozy with the Soviet Union. It was not so much their flirtation with communism, but their friendliness with the ancient enemy in the East. The neocons dropped their own communism and became libertarian Cold War hawks.

The following generations, on the other hand, were not so clever. Bill Kristol, for example, has been wrong about everything for thirty years. He thought Dan Quayle would make a good second for Poppy Bush. He though Sarah Palin would make a good second for John McCain. Quayle and Palin were decent people trying to do the right thing, but their appeal to Kristol was that he believed he could outwit them, which meant they were not the sharpest tools in the toolshed.

Putting that aside, you really see the cult-like aspect in this post. It is pure projection of neoconservative defects onto their enemy. The post’s subhead says it all. “Claiming to love America while believing that it is broken and that many of your fellow citizens are your enemies.” These are people who spent the last six years claiming that Trump and his voters need to be exterminated on the grounds that they are evil. Bill Kristol wants to genocide the “lazy” white working class.

Later in the post we get this gem, “In his public addresses, President Biden has made a conscious effort to speak to all Americans. Donald Trump, by contrast, typically reverts to the language of us-versus-them…” This is the sort of thing you get from someone who is no longer engaged with reality. It is also the way a cult member projects the defects of his cult onto enemies. The hive-minded neocon is projecting the things he most despises about his cult onto the enemies of the cult.

The transformation of neoconservatism into this bizarre hyper-violent subculture raises an interesting set of questions. Was it always a blood-soaked political cult obsessed with bringing about the end times? On the other hand, is this what happens when a bespoke identity cult loses its primary purpose? After all, neoconservatism was built for the Cold War, so when that ended, their purpose ended. Like a hive who loses its queen, the remaining members of this cult buzz around in anger.

There is another angle here. The first generation of neoconservatives went through a period where they aggressively attacked their former host. It was as if they were trying to purge themselves of the old identity to make room for the new one. That could be what we are seeing here. The current neocons are shedding their old conservative skin in order to grow a neoliberal skin. This will allow them to attach themselves to what they think is the permanent new order in Washington.

Additional support for this the tone and language in their posts. Note that in the past they differentiated between “Trumpists” and conservatives. Increasingly they conflate the terms, using them as synonyms. Note also they are not trying to reconcile with their old allies in Conservative Inc. Instead, they have retreated into their own ghettos while they go through the transformation. The next chapter of neoconservatism will take place within the neoliberal order, they hope.

It is an interesting phenomenon to behold, if you can avoid being emotionally drawn in by their projection. Perhaps that is another reason that cults project their hatreds, fears, and insecurities onto others. It is a distraction. The endless feverish attacks on alleged enemies draw the eye away from what is happening in the cult. That old self-loathing, the desire for self-abnegation, at the root of the true believer, results in a group behavior that always seeks to distract from what is happening in the cult.


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


The Show Goes On

One of the weird aspects of liberal democracy is that the state takes every opportunity to celebrate itself. Every public event has rituals before the event where members of the state are marched out to be cheered by the crowd. Sporting events have a weird North Korean vibe to them. July 4th has always been a chance for the office holders to celebrate themselves. This year, the F.B.I. decided to hold a parade in the city of Philadelphia to let us know they are always on the job.

Patriot Front is the latest carnival act to get a chance to perform on the big stage of democracy, at the direction of the usual suspects. They are based in Texas, but decided to hold a parade in Philadelphia over the long weekend. Allegedly, they got a permit from the city, but their event looked ad hoc. They showed up, danced around just long enough to get media attention and a reaction from locals. Then they got back in their vehicles and headed for parts unknown.

Some will no doubt say it is unfair to assume these guys are just another honeypot cooked up by the secret police, but that is the way to bet these days. The Oath Keepers are looking like they were created by the secret police a decade ago. This exhaustive deep dive by Darren Beatty into the origins of the group and the dodgy nature of the founder should cause everyone to rethink the authenticity of these groups. The best you can say about any of them is they are led by unstable people.

The Oath Keepers are not an outlier. The Proud Boys, which was started by Gavin McInnes, went from goofy fan club to paramilitary operation. Instead of drinking beer and celebrating western chauvinism, they were rolling around in the dirt with Antifa and other state-sponsored extremist groups. It turns out that the guy who took over the group was a “serial informer” for the secret police. This is  pattern with these groups that goes back a very long way. It is the default position.

The essential tool of all secret police operations is to use unstable informers to infiltrate the target group. The reason this works is outsider politics tends to attract people just looking for a home, many of whom are unstable. Go to a Libertarian Party event and it feels like the day room of a local insane asylum. One of the results is people organizing outside the system will encounter a lot of crazies. They get used to seeing them, so the one that is actually an informer slips through.

A good example of how this works is the Bolsheviks. A fellow named Roman Malinovsky was a prominent Bolshevik before the revolution. He was also an agent of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police. He was able to become close friends with Lenin and Stalin, two highly paranoid and suspicious men. Malinovsky even setup Stalin so he could be arrested at a social event. He was so good at his work that even when everyone was in jail but him, they still did not think he was a spy.

Malinovsky was always the most enthusiastic supporter of the cause. This is what won him notice from Bolshevik leaders. He was a guy who never deviated from the party line, however it was being expressed by the leaders. It was why Lenin could not accept that he was a spy, even when the evidence was clear. It is always hard to distrust the guy who is your most loyal supporter. Eventually he was betrayed by his ex-mistress and the Bolsheviks had him killed.

Another reason the secret police find it easy to infiltrate outsider groups, especially those claiming to be on the Right, is that they are usually run by stupid people who never learn from the past. Look at this Patriot Front outfit. The “flag and costume” act has been a failure in America going back to George Lincoln Rockwell. The general public find it weird and off-putting. The only thing these antics do is isolate the group from normal society, making them easy targets.

What did the Patriot Front people think they were doing? They already managed to get themselves put on the terror watchlist. If they were hoping for attention by the Feds, they need not worry. Was anyone in Philly going to be impressed with this stunt and say to themselves, “You know, I think I may consider becoming a fascist”? Was this event going to bring them positive coverage from the media? As Jason Köhne noted, the only thing it did was drag young men further into the abyss.

Politics in a liberal democracy is a drama run by the ruling class. Think of it as a big stage on which politics is acted out for the masses. In America, this means the Left opens the show by demanding action against some threat to “our democracy” or demanding action to defend a victim group. Their fluffers go into the crowd to get the audience excited for the next drama. The actors perform the familiar story, sometimes combining the two into a single story.

At this point, the so-called conservatives waddle onto the stage in their comfort-fit chinos and golf shirts. They dismiss the claims of the Left, either claiming they are  exaggerating or that the issue is just not important. The crowd is encouraged to boo and hiss at them, which causes their knees to shake. Before long, some of them break ranks and join the Left in jeering at their old colleagues. The crowd keeps booing and the conservative are eventually run off the stage.

Every once in a while, for reasons science has yet to explain, the conservatives do not start to shiver and quake. They hold their ground. This is when the the spotlight illuminates the right side of the stage and we see the Hitler outfit. Over the sound system comes, “Who in the crowd will perform this vital role?” Sure enough, some idiot from a group fond of weird flags runs up on stage, dons the costume and begins to strut around on stage as the crowd throws rotten vegetables.

This is what the Patriot Front did over the weekend. They also took credit for defacing the statue of the blessed George Floyd, peace be upon him. These guys are performing a vital role in the political drama. This is why the Feds are endlessly trying to coopt and create groups that will perform this role. It turns out that the supply of idiots willing to do this without prompting can never meet demand. The secret police make sure the supply is always there so the show can keep staggering on.


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!


Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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 sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.


Me In Taki

Imagine it is the 1980s and a collection of mad scientists searching for the secret of eternal life put a typical progressive into a cryogenic state. The lefty does not want to wait for the glorious revolution, and she wants to be young enough to enjoy the paradise the prophets of her faith have promised. One thing leads to another, and she remains an unsavory popsicle until she is thawed out in the current year.

The first thing our defrosted lefty would note is that the modern aesthetic is something like 1950s East Berlin. Modern America is an ugly place. The most popular car colors are black, gray, and white. They all look the same, too. An American parking lot in the 1980s was a circus of colors and shapes. Today, it is row after row of the best ideas from the worst people, all in the name of efficiency and utility.

Our proletarian popsicle would probably assume the communists won the Cold War and imposed their aesthetic on America. After all, the main selling point against communism was the freedom and creativity of the capitalist West. In America, you could let your freak flag fly, and no one could tell you otherwise. The dreary sameness of modern America could only be the result of losing the Cold War to the communists….

Read the rest here.