The Un-Americans

One of the things that has always been true about America is that you never question someone’s patriotism unless you have strong evidence. Part of this is due to the immigrant back story of most Americans, but a bigger part is the fragmented nature of the country. Patriotism is the glue that holds the American Nations together. Different groups from different regions stick together because of a common national creed. This also works across class lines. The rich, the middle and the poor are equally patriotic.

One result of this has been a desire by leaders to not look like fops. Politicians, businessmen, even generals, have always done the every-man act in order to seem like one of the folks. We do not have a hereditary class, but we do have rich people. Rather than a rigid class system, the rich make sure to let the lower classes know they have the same duty to the country as everyone else. This soul and soil nationalism, rather than blood and soil, is what binds the social classes and the regional cultures together. At least it used too.

That is certainly not the way things are now. Our cultural and political leaders go out of their way to signal their hostility to the lower classes. In fact, it has become so common for our betters to sneer at us, they are competing with one another to prove just how much they hate Americans. Of course, they mean white Americans. The swarthy recent imports are the best, but the old stock, well, they are the worst, according to the people claiming to represent us. It really is remarkable just how much they detest us.

A commenter on Steve Sailer’s blog asked, in response to this David Brooks column, “Has there ever been another time in American history when American elites felt this comfortable expressing such open contempt and hatred for their fellow citizens?” It is a good question. Certainly, elites from some sections have hated the people of other sections. Virginia gentry, prior to the Civil War, thought the goobers from West Virginia were worst than Indians. New Englanders hate the South. Everyone hates Cleveland.

What we are seeing today is different. It is a public hatred directed at the fundamental nature of America, and by extension, Americans. Here is an example from Bill Kristol in response to an immigration segment on Fox News. What Kristol is arguing is that Americans, as in current citizens, have no right to discuss immigration policy. It is immoral for us to say anything about it. On the other hand, non-Americans, people not currently citizens, have a moral duty to cross the border and settle in your neighborhood.

Kristol is hardly alone. It is not strictly a Jewish thing either. Lyndsey Graham is not Jewish, as far as anyone knows. He no longer thinks America should exist. He denies that the current citizens have any right to exist whatsoever. Granted, he is a shrieking hysteric, prone to hyperbole, but there is only one way to interpret what he is saying. Being an American is no longer permissible. In fact, the underlying rationale of the open borders side is that the current Americans are just no good and need to be replaced.

Now, this turn in elite opinion has been a long time coming. In the Clinton years, suddenly comfortable Boomers started buying McMansions and pretending they were too good for the hoi polloi in flyover country. Progressive politics moved away from the bread and butter economic issues and onto esoteric identity politics. This snootiness was most apparent when the Left went to war on Walmart. Once Progressives stopped pretending to like normal Americans, the so-called Conservatives joined them.

Elites have always had a disdain for the lower classes. This has been true at all times and all places. Elites have also always had a duty to look out for the interests of the lower classes. The ruling class may not have liked the people over whom they ruled, but they were duty bound to look out for them and keep their opinions to themselves. What is happening in modern America is the ruling class is rejecting their duty to their fellow citizen, because they have contempt for the very notion that we are their fellow citizens.

There really is no example from history where the ruling class revolted and declared war on its subjects. That is where we are today in America. When Trump gave his State of the Union, most of the people in the building hated him because he holds onto the old fashioned belief that the American government should serve the American people. As far as they are concerned, he’s not just a class traitor, he is insane. After all, why would anyone think the people in charge have any responsibility to the rabble?

It used to be that “un-American” meant counter to the American system and the American creed. The people charged with policing that were the people in charge. Today, being un-American is a badge of honor for the people in charge. A US Congressman actually fled the building when the crowd started in with a patriotic chant during Trump’s address to Congress. You can be sure he was the toast of the city, a hero to his coevals in the political class. Bizarre as it sounds, America is a country now ruled by un-Americans.

92 thoughts on “The Un-Americans

  1. Pingback: The Fate of the NeoCons | The Z Blog

  2. The elites have decided that we need to reduce the world pop. With automation they no longer need the common man to be at their beck and call. They see a future where the common are all replaced.

  3. Maybe the House of Representatives should form a committee on American activities, since they now are highly suspect, if not verboten altogether.

  4. There are many, many examples of the ruling class viewing their people as an obstacle to family dynastic ambitions: Genoa, Milan, Florence, Thebes, Athens, Pisa, the late Roman Republic and Empires, the Kingdom of Naples.

    Indeed the late Greek City States and Italian City States were plagued by instability caused by oligarchic dynasties viewing with contempt and producing bad government on their people.

    • I think the difference is this. When the prince sees some of his people as an obstacle to his ambitions, his actions against them are not motivated by hatred. It’s greed. Our rulers, at least a certain segment, seem to be motivated by nothing more than malice. Strangely, the egalitarian nature of our society, coupled with the competition from below, maybe the issue. If these people had hereditary titles, they could just ignore us. Instead, their status is defined by their contempt for us.

  5. Southern plantation owners chose importing foreigners over their white brethren. Slaves were taller than whites, means had a higher living standard.

  6. Flaunting their hatred for whites is virtue signaling for the left. It passes for moral substance in the otherkin tribe. They are deluded, of course.

  7. And Trump spent 90 minutes of SOTU praising the ordinary middle class up in the gallery for its day-to-day acts of responsibility and courage.

    How dare he!

  8. Two quotes:

    “Has there ever been another time in American history when American elites felt this comfortable expressing such open contempt and hatred for their fellow citizens?” -commenter at Sailor’s blog.

    “Everyone hates Cleveland”. – Zman.

    Based on your extensive notes and comments on ‘Lagos on the Chesapeake’, and my own experience with both cities, I’m just wondering what the gratuitous stab is all about.

    ‘Everyone hates LeBron James’, on the other hand, is axiomatic…

    • National media has always despised Cleveland, and from my experience as a native, many of us have an inferiority complex vis a vis the neighboring Pittsburgh and Columbus. A long time ago, Cleveland actually was the fifth largest city in the US.

      The river also burned back in the 1970s.

  9. One other point, I read today that somebody is spreading a rumor that FBI Director Wray will resign if “the memo” is released. I believe in the context of the above post by Zman, and in the general spirit of putting the so-called elites in their place, the response from Trump ought to be:

    “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

    • Yeah, Trump is not the cat to bluff. He has called bigger bluffs than some paper pusher throwing a tantrum.

      As an aside, one time someone told me they would resign over some issue before me. My response was, “You have already resigned, regardless of my decision. I will not tolerate your lack of support.”

      The guy literally started crying.

      • Yup, I had a guy threaten to quit if I didn’t give him a raise. I told him he should take the job if it was a better deal for his family. His eyebrows went up, and he stayed in the company another 3-4 years.

        Always have a Plan B.

  10. “Today, being un-American is a badge of honor for the people in charge. … America is a country now ruled by un-Americans.”

    That’s how I always felt about Obama. Whereas Jimmy Carter didn’t think much of this country or its people, Obama hates this country and its people. He couldn’t wait to travel around the world to tell everyone how much we sucked. That’s why the birther thing got so much traction. Obama acted like a hostile foreign ruler determined to put the screws to the occupied. No one would have ever entertained the idea that Reagan or Trump was foreign born because they never acted that way.

    The elites’ un-Americanism is so important to them that they never pass up a chance to parade it publicly. Corporations, athletes, entertainers, etc. are deliberately alienating large swaths of their customers just to virtue-signal their peers. They hate us and they are falling over each other to make that clear to each other.

    • In fairness to our enemies, as we face the last convulsions of the nation we loved, I still ask in all sincerity: What’s the reason for the hate? You grew up here, you speak our language, you share our racial heritage, you aspire to our standard of material life, you gain an ‘education’ at our schools and universities, you drive your car through our open terrain, on well-engineered roads, from coast to coast, you enjoy privileges that no dynastic family would have but envied.

  11. The best part was Guitierrez saying he was late for a meeting. That he felt the need to make this kind of excuse tells you just how well it is going over with the public.

    His reaction will have an effect on voters much the same way that all those Mexican flags killed the Kennedy/McCain amnesty bill in 2007. The Open Borders propaganda operates on the assumption that people are not openly told or shown how much these newly minted immigrants hate our guts. It’s always with the face of children. (kinda like pot legalization with the wounded vets and taxes for school children) These are not people who wish to be American citizens. These are people with conquest on their minds.

    • Gutierrez also floated the story that he had a case of Montezuma’s revenge. It seems fitting.

    • Yes, yes. Those pesky meetings at 10pm on a Tuesday night during the State of the Union address where, incidentally, you’re having your guts stomped out on national television by your mortal enemy while the crowd chants “USA! USA!!!”

      That kind of meeting, Luis?

  12. Someone, somewhere has pictures of the kiddie diddler Graham. It is well past time they saw the light of day.

    • Vids of Xr. Graham as the designated powerbottom in a homo gangbang keep Lin on the straight? and narrow.

  13. When I left my house to take my dog to the park for his exercise, two white fellows were working on replacing a sidewalk across the street from me.

    I backed out the driveway carefully with my window rolled down. As I was slowly maneuvering, I could hear the two blue collar guys talking. They were discussing the politics of gerrymandering. I didn’t get to hear the full context of their conversation or what state they might be looking at because I drove away too soon, but I marveled how these dumb, blue collar, white redneck morons could possibly consider the fine points of partisan political game rigging. What a world when average IQ white guys can colloquy on political science. How is that even possible?

  14. “I wish it was as simple as shooting 100 people in the head…”

    “oh i think that shooting the right 100 people would do the trick. especially if you leave the bodies out in the open…”

    What do you idiots think this is, a private conversation in a hot tub somewhere?

    • What are you all cucked up about? You hit this URL. You commented. THEY, those omnipotent beings you’re so awed by… they don’t care if it was simply to scold us to good behavior. Your sorry little narrow shouldered bitch ass will be slated for the rail cars right along with the rest of us
      Or, you could Man the fuck up and start helping.
      Buy some gats and start some PT. You’ll soon feel better

    • Obama’s mentor and ghostwriter estimated he’d need to exterminate a quarter of the population before Utopia could reign. He later moderated the estimate down to 40 million. Did this ever hold Bill Ayers back? Here we are keeping things within three digits. If you don’t kill a few traitors why would they take you seriously? They don’t,they won’t, and they shouldn’t.

  15. There is genuine malice in the hatred that the ruling class openly espouses toward common folk, but that behavior breeds extreme arrogance and blindness. They think common equals stupid, and hence is of no consequence. They think they can act with impunity because they are untouchable. Won’t they be surprised when they find out that no one is guarding their six.

  16. Sure, contempt for the white rabble is not strictly a Jewish thing.
    But the upper-crust whites express that contempt by avoidance & hidden sneers amongst themselves.
    Jews express it by creating a moral framework that demonizes those lower-caste whites as irredeemably evil, suffuses the academic & media with that morality & seeks to elevate every other racial group in America & the world above those whites.
    Big difference.

  17. “…Europeans as in current citizens, have no right to discuss immigration policy. It is immoral for us to say anything about it. On the other hand, non-European, people not currently citizens, have a moral duty to cross the border and settle in your neighborhood.”

    Same story, different location.

    • Your rulers despise you. They import rapists, ignore the results, and punish you if you dare complain.

  18. Noblesse Oblige is a distinctly European concept. It’s no surprise that as our leaders become less European and more distinctly (((non-European))) the vestiges of noblesse oblige is in decline.

  19. “When Trump gave his State of the Union, most of the people in the building hated him because he holds onto the old fashioned belief that the American government should serve the American people. As far as they are concerned, he’s not just a class traitor, he is insane. After all, why would anyone think the people in charge have any responsibility to the rabble?”

    This article is spot on, I think. They do hate him. But I doubt that the people labeling Trump insane believe he is, actually, insane. I suspect they know he is clear-headed as can be. The insanity claim is just a tool, deliberately wielded, to delegitimatize the President and his actions.

    The Trump haters will throw anything at him they can.

    Pink hats, anyone?

    • “…most of the people in the building hated him…” Riiiight.

      That’s the reason that the people in that building started chanting, “USA! USA! USA!,” because they hated Trump- is that what you’re saying? All that Trump hatred was so fierce that slimy little Luis Gutierrez had to run away, since he didn’t want to be associated with all that Trump hatred?

      I’ll have to ask you all to show your work on this point, as your logic is not apparent to me!

      (I do hope it’s not Common Core logic, I’ve never understood that either.)

  20. I’m not sure calls to “duty” or “noblesse oblige” are the best appeal to any elite, although there may have been a time when those concepts resonated more deeply. Seems very clear to me that historically there is only so much abuse the masses will absorb. I find the best motivation for any elite is self interest and self preservation. I understand the elites believe they are safe and exempt from repercussion now, and
    that is my biggest frustration: Within the current social/state/banking arrangements, I think they are assessing the situation accurately.

    • They began openly displaying their hate after the TARP bailout. The idea was floated with a whiff of “I can’t believe we’re trying to do this. Do you think they will buy it, or revolt?”. That 8 years of Obama’s “fundamental transformation” followed allowed them to roll around in an orgy of hatred for Whites in manners from the Soviet (HUD targeting of areas deemed “too White”, IRS targeting of Tea Party groups) to the petty (taxation on tanning salons) to the conspiratorial (Fast and Furious).

      But those guns….it’s what keeps them up at night.

  21. Over at InstaPundit, Sarah Hoyt highlighted this column by Daniel Greenfield:

    TRUMP DIVIDES AMERICANS AND UN-AMERICANS
    The greatest American speech of the century.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269181/trump-divides-americans-and-un-americans-daniel-greenfield

    It’s not a bad column, but I have not received much sympathy for noting that in this passage, listing iconic American, patriotic mentions for which American officials stood in respect, one of these things is not like the others:

    At the State of the Union, we saw those two halves divide up the House Chamber. We saw American elected officials stand for the flag, for the anthem, for veterans, for Jerusalem and for In God We Trust. And we saw the un-American officials selected by corrupt urban machine politics stay seated.

    • And why should Americans stand for “Jerusalem”?

      these are the Zionist filth who have destroyed the US.

  22. Zman gets it. I don’t think anyone since Joe Sobran has articulated our relationship to our rulers so well. I doff my cap!

  23. I think things really started to turn to ca-ca when the socialist dribble penned by Brooklyn’s own Emma Lazarus was ensconced in bronze on the Statue of Liberty, forever changing what the structure celebrated. “Give me your tired, your poor,. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”….

    Uhhh, that’s some seriously F-ed up bullsh!t, there. And not just because some countries have wretched masses who are orders of magnitude wretcheder than others (i.e, see “shitholes”).

    No, what we should have done is what the Swiss have done. Let virtually nobody in, if you do, it’s damn near impossible to actually become Swiss, conscription for the young folk in the military (or civilian service for the wash-outs) so they have to rub up against the lower classes for a while, where they then turn you and everyone else there into sharpshooters, and when your service is complete, they compel you to take the weapon that you are now lethal with back to the family farm where your Father’s and Grandfather’s weapons from their service are also still stored.

    It’s why the Swiss stay above the fray. Who’d invade a country like that? Plus, your money is stored there. Brilliant.

    Anyhow, we’ve totally scotched it here. The “Elites” laugh at the mere idea of their involvement in anything so below them as military service (or policing), and more than that, they actually deride the people, who’s job it is to keep their fat spoiled asses out of the flames, as near-retarded rubes.

    Like Z often says, this will not end well. Or, at least not in the short term.

    • “I think things really started to turn to ca-ca when the socialist dribble penned by Brooklyn’s own Emma Lazarus was ensconced in bronze on the Statue of Liberty”

      I don’t remember who it was but one of Steve Sailer’s commenters said a few years back America really starting running off the rails when the national narrative or founding mythology shifted from “nation of pioneers” to “nation of immigrants”.

      When the Westerns were replaced as box office draws by the Godfathers, Gangs of New York etc.

  24. I put a Roman spin on it. The Patricians (or the cloud people the Patricians pay to represent them) and their Prole allies (who they pay off with welfare from my tax-dollars in return for votes) want a government run by professionals for their benefit.

    Us Equestrians and working Plebeians want to left alone without much government. But, we have to fight a resistance to keep from getting taxed and regulated into serfdom.

  25. It doesn’t sound bizarre at all. The most ubiquitous information vehicles that inform/transform us (brainwash us ) as a nation come from the mainstream media, pop culture and the government education system, which are all converged, self loathing, American hating entities. The arguments here and elsewhere hardly get an ear, but the intuitive nature of many Americans, whether they can articulate counter argument to the Zeitgeist or not at least keep the civilized American ship afloat…for now.

    I have enough horse sense to know that the gulf between the pro American and anti-American entities will never be bridged. I mean we’re to the point now where the unAmerican entities can be openly hostile to “oppressive” white America in particular with impunity, and the only question then is will this hostility ultimately lead to violent oppression ( as payback for its sins) against this segment of America?

    The behavior we’re witnessing is to my knowledge unchartered territory in a mature republic, so how it ultimately plays out I don’t have a clue. But make no mistake the demonization of large swaths of America will only get worse going forward. 70 million Trump supporters are not going to be willing pin cushions for the left, however. This will not end well.

  26. “Lyndsey Graham is not Jewish”

    But he does farm out most of his decision making to AIPAC. There are certainly other class and business interests working to keep the borders open, but in Graham’s case it would probably not be inaccurate to simply call it Jewish Influence.

  27. Can’t help but dislike the use of the word “elite” when used to describe mediocrities with money, celebrity, “doctorates” earned in a rigged and ruined university system, a “public” voice in “mass media” financed by non-patriotic, Gramsci-minded “cultural hegemony” revolutionaries, and so on; such folks are at best self-proclaimed elites, but in my book they’re enemies, pure and simple. If Trump were Stalin or Mao, they’d be purged in a NY minute. My heart beats a bit faster when I fantasize them being sent to Alaska to work on pipelines dressed in their designer pajamas.

  28. Hatred is directed at middle class, potential competition not the lower classes. They are a cannon fodder in this fight

    • Near the end, the Roman Middle Class was taxed out of existence. Artisans were willing to sell themselves into slavery to avoid the crushing taxes. That was and always will be the dream of the Patricians and cloud people – even though it means the barbarians will be at the gates shortly and nobody will lift a finger.

  29. Going off an a tangent but Zman linked to an article about Luis “my only loyalty is to the immigrant community “ Gutierrez storming out…. can we just issue a perfunctory apology for 120 years of colonialism and grant Puerto Rico independence? Make Luis the president for all I care. The native language isn’t English, they have their own flag, they have their own Olympic teams, but when they need money they’re true blue Americans just like me and you!

    Gutierrez disgusts me. He’s the walking embodiment of all the things wrong with post ‘65 immigration. The whole “in America but not of it” citizen.

  30. I’ve always been annoyed by the “nation of immigrants” trope. One can identify roughly four distinct cultures (might not be the right word) in the history of this country:

    • Stone-Age, the various peoples that were here when the-

    • Settlers came from the British Isles and create the state which would admit

    • Immigrants, who landed on a system already in place, and some of these and some of the settlers would mutate into-

    • Post-Americans, the trans-national progressives who mean to lord it over
    the rest of us for the balance of history.

    I realize there are many quibbles to make with my crackpot sociological theory, I plead painting with broad strokes. But we are not a “nation of immigrants”, settlers created the thing, and then let too many of the wrong sorts in. And now here we are.

    • You missed the most destructive wave: the two million Eastern European Jews who were imported between 1880 and 1920.
      100 years on, they’ve damn near destroyed the host society.

  31. We are being colonized by globalist elites. They are supporting the minorities against the majority

    • Not a new point. But thank you for keeping it real.

      The transnational controllers watch their monitors and laugh at how we succumb to the racial text they’ve written; the secret police in late imperial Russia incited pogroms to keep the heat off the dying monarchy but that all failed because their technology was not so good.

      The technology now is all set. The human race can be managed and studied now, and paradise is here – for the laughing and glass-clinking controllers on their yachts, with their post-chaos island strong points.

      • No doubt they believe they are safe on their islands of thought and the islands they’ll flee to when they start the ‘final solution.’ But God knows where they are at all times: “And every island disappeared, and all the mountains were leveled.” (Rev. 16:20)

  32. I think there is an underlying understanding of this issue among a lot of people – but it manifests in different ways. On the left – because they’re “sensitive” – and these days they’re also a bunch of stinking commies – this realization manifests in their hatred of the “rich”. They’re too blind and ignorant though to see that it’s the government itself that is the worst manifestation of the hatred by the elites of the lower classes.

    In the right side of things – this understanding manifests itself pretty well among the patriot movement , is elaborated upon pretty well by guys like Matt Bracken – and I also see it show up in random places like this blog post from Taxi Hack – which I read years ago and somebody reminded me of recently:

    http://taxicabdepressions.com/?p=1193

    (the context of the conversation was gun confiscation – but the same sentiment applies to a lot of the current day issues with corruption)

    =====
    Wheeler got quiet for a few moments, and then he said something that I will never, ever forget.

    “These people are playing with matches… I don’t think they understand the scope and scale of the wildfire they are flirting with. They are fucking around with a civil war that could last a decade and cause millions of deaths… and the sad truth is that 95% of the problems we have in this country could be solved tomorrow, by noon… simply by dragging 100 people out in the street and shooting them in the fucking head.”

    =====

    I’ve seen that “take a 100 people out and shoot them in the head” sentiment expressed in a number of different places over the years in places ranging from gun rights writers to articles on libertarian sites like LewRockwell.com. So it seems like one of those “great minds think alike” type things where people all come to the same conclusion after evaluating the evidence at hand.

    When you’ve come to the conclusion that leaders need to be taken out into the street and shot in the head – you’ve also come to the same conclusion that you’re elaborating on in this article.

    • I wish it was as simple as shooting 100 people in the head but the rot runs much deeper than that in this country I’m afraid.

      • oh i think that shooting the right 100 people would do the trick. especially if you leave the bodies out in the open…

        • I don’t blame anyone for that opinion but its part of the underlying desire to flee or to avoid the chaos

          The “actual Right” is in some sense Law vs the Left’s Chaos and is terrified of instability

          I’m mean look at the Lefts reaction to the election of President Trump whose a moderate live and let live reformer. Imagine how they’d react to say Martial Law Pence and actually imposing order no matter what the cost

          assuming resistance was crushed, I’d suspect a lot of them would just suicide since like most “R” selected rabbits they can’t cope with limits

          I personally don’t think the awfulness can be avoided and that we’d better off bringing back collective punishment and bills of attainder (which yes are specially unconstitutional for an excellent reason) and taking out all the trash , all of it for good.

          If a revolution can’t reclaim an institution they are far better off eliminating it.

          That said we aren’t there yet , we might never need to be and only an idiot starts trouble while things are shifting his way

        • I suggest we take a crack at putting the list together as a group project. Start with a list of 10 to get things rolling and prompt discussion around selection criteria for the list. For example, Soros and both Clintons would be on my initial list, but do we also include despicable, but relatively harmless, inmbeciles like Maxine Waters? What criteria do we use as we identify people on who we perceive to be enemies of freedom and our noble shared culture? Fast forward, we have the list in hand, now what? In order to make good on the proposed public executions, “we” already have to be in power, unless we are going to off them covertly, ala Seal Team Six. I guess once the list is generated, we could just focus on making their lives miserable, and rendering them less effective via law suits, flaming bags of poo on their front door steps, etc, etc. The proposed list of 100 is an emotionally appealing idea, I just dont see what we powerless atoms do with it.

          • Well, if someone DOES decide to put a list together, there’s no way Obama, Graham, Kristol, Pelosi and Schumer don’t make the top 20. I’d also add McCain and Ginsberg, but with luck it won’t be too long before neither one is down for breakfast. Little Georgie Will should make the list, but he’s so insufferable no one really pays much attention to him.

          • There are people who have already put thought into what should happen to members of the media who have acted as willing accomplices to all of these corrupt higher ups in the government (this is just an interesting little fiction story)

            https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/what-i-saw-at-the-coup/

            Matt Bracken – What I Saw At the Coup

            =====

            The first real jolt indicating a serious problem with the plan came when television reporter Cathy Carlsen was killed in Norfolk, shot dead while covering the commissioning of the Harvey Milk, the Navy’s newest destroyer. That she was killed was bad enough. That it happened on a “secure” naval base—a federal installation—made it much worse. Her blood splattered across the Admirals’ white uniforms made quite a picture. The videos…

            We were two women born in the same year, with similar academic backgrounds. We had known each other for decades, and her untimely death hit me hard. Cathy Carlsen had been a reliable voice on the progressive side of a supposedly impartial television news network. That a respected member of the media would be assassinated was big surprise, at least to me. Up to that point, only a few federal officials and high-ranking agents had been targeted.

            Then a new photo was released on the internet. I had always thought the NSA could trace those things back to their origins, but apparently not. The photo was taken through the Norfolk sniper’s rifle scope just a few moments before the murder. It showed thin black crosshairs and other reference marks across Cathy’s smiling face. And it showed some text added just above her head:

            If the media lies, the media dies.
            You take a side, you’re along for the ride.
            A traitor in front of a camera is still just a traitor.

            This single act of domestic terrorism immediately dampened the enthusiasm of most of our formerly reliable reporters to continue to carry our water. More such photographs of other media figures appeared on the internet with crosshairs over their faces. Most of the pictures were bogus, just photoshop pranks, but they had a similar effect: our dependably cooperative reporters suddenly lost their nerve. The comments following the photos on the remaining right-wing web forums were perhaps the most frightening aspect. It was obvious that plenty of Americans were willing to voice their support for the assassinations of their enemies in both the media and the government. It became a game for them to walk up to the “fomenting domestic terrorism” line with carefully parsed words, and this glutted our SNA fusion centers with background noise.

            ======

          • What about targeting the media’s distribution capabilities? I mean, turn on the TV and nothing but static. That, in truth would be a case of vandalism. Of course, when the media channels were restored they would sell the act as terrorism. But beyond the reach of their propaganda, most American’s would be quietly admiring their saviors, those who blocked the programming and ended the life long trance.

            If I could suggest one message be written across that static, it would be…
            “You Are the Hero of Your Own Story.”

    • “Sharpen your tusks. I simply don’t believe we are going to be able to vote our way out of the pig trap.”

      …..from your link. The post is worth the read. Tim

  33. I think there is an example of the ruling class revolting and declaring war on its subjects: Henry VIII. The ruling class got what they wanted – hell, the TV show Downton Abbey was all about a family whose ancestor took possession of an abbey – and the regular people lost those things that were most important to them.

    There was a revolt, of course. But they were all cut to pieces, or wished they had been, the ordinary soldiers understanding where their bread was buttered.

    Black pill for the day.

    • And today’s armed thugs will do the same.
      No one in a government costume is on your side. Shiny tin badges are warning signs.

    • Another from an unexpected corner: the French Revolution.

      Just finished The Ancien Regime vol1 by Pierre Goubert. The Classical or Marxist interpretation of the revolution was that it was a revolt of pre-capitalist bourgeoisie against the old feudal nobility. Goubert does a good job of using demographic statistics and historical evidence to show that there was so much overlap between those two that the classical interpretation falls apart.

      p. 251-2 “There is no evidence of conflict between a ‘feudal’ aristocracy and a ‘capitalist’ bourgeoisie…the true rift lay not between the big bourgeoisie and the old nobility, both of these experienced in business, but between this composite elite and the rest of the nation, whom it basically despised.”

      • Marx hated the burghers. He was a brilliant man, in my opinion, but the fiction of a potent ‘bourgeoisie’ was a fever in his mind which led him to design a theory of history that satisfied his animus, leaving the hated burghers dead or carrying pails of water to their superiors.

        The middle class always faces a 2-front war, and its deserters always jump the line to the West – toward the rulers. Thus Brooks and his despicable clones through all time,

        • I can’t speak for Gaubert, but I would think, according to how he did his research, that he would challenge us to define “middle class”. Once you began deciding on criteria, you would find that there are many who would be better off classified among the elites because of influence that cannot be quantified. It’s like a mafia capo who lives in a simple house and you can’t figure out where his income arises.

          The difficulty extends itself in the other direction, as well. There were peasants who were much better off than significant portions of the nobility of the blood, some approaching near to elite status in the power they wielded locally. But they weren’t among the bourgeoisie.

          There is also plenty of recorded evidence that the use of the word “bourgeoise” in many areas was simply used to denote whomever the “boss”was, regardless of his actual status according to what “estate” he supposedly belonged to.

          What one is left with is a broad swath of people who “call the shots” regardless of income or official status. These are your elites.

          I never brought up politics in my office, but once I was talking to a college professor and he brought up something about it. It was some time after Angelo Codevila’s essay and before Trump. He couldn’t understand why people were voting the way they do, and I said that they were unhappy with the ruling class and waved my arm at him to include him in this. He looked shocked, of course, but what could he say? Despite his low six figure income, he was helping to write both state and national laws under Obama. He was “one of them”.

  34. I think you nailed it. The first thing that came up in my mind after I read the speech and the reactions on it, was “The representatives no longer represent their voters”. Except for Trump.

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