Springtime For Grifters

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One of the most amusing and revealing disasters in the book publishing business was the Naomi Wolf blunder of 2019. She was doing the rounds to promote her forthcoming book on the treatment of homosexuals in 19th century England. Given the topic, she expected to be given a hero’s welcome at every stop on her promotion tour, but instead she found out the premise of her book was nonsense. Here is a summary of the radio interview that made her famous for the wrong reasons.

Ms. Wolf is a good reminder that the establishment is loaded with grifters on both sides of the political spectrum. From this side of the great divide, the grifters of Conservative Inc. are most obvious, but they are pikers compared to the Left. Since the Left feeds on an array of identity groups, the opportunities to peddle nonsense are greater and more necessary, so they have a wide range of hucksters, conmen and so on. The mass media is just a platform for the left-wing grift-o-sphere.

What makes the Wolf story interesting is that it not only reveals the fraud of the political Left, but the bankruptcy of academia. This nonsense book Wolf wrote is based on her doctoral thesis at Oxford. In other words, the basic errors she made in reading the historical documents were not caught by her advisor or the thesis review committee that eventually granted her a title based on this pile of nonsense. They just rubber stamped the work, because the subject matter fit their agenda.

The real tell here is that Oxford not only did not rescind her doctorate or demand she revise her work, they never acknowledged it. They did not punish her thesis advisor, a person calling himself Stefano-Maria Evangelista. According to his website at the university he is still in good standing as an academic. Taken together, this says that the academy has no standards whatsoever. Ms. Wolf could have written her thesis with finger paint and it would have been approved as long as it had the right title.

Another amusing and revealing aspect to this is the early reviews of the book that are still up on Amazon. Note that Amazon deletes books and pages when the topic vexes the bigots over at the SPLC, but they leave up a complete fraud like the Wolf book. To their credit, the publisher pulped the book, but that did not stop reviewers from slobbering over it as if it is a lost work of Rousseau. One reviewer called it a “moving work of creative scholarship” which is a nice touch.

Like the academy, the book publishing business is packed to the gills with grifters and conmen, operating in a system that has no ethics. From this side of the great divide, the planks of wood pumping out books for Conservative Inc. are the most obvious, but the book publishing world mostly serves the Left. It is every bit as corrupt and value free as every other aspect of official society these days. The only thing that matters is that the fashionable opinions of the moment are echoed by the writers.

Of course, what makes the grift-o-sphere run so well is the total lack of shame on the part of the people running the various grifts. This is an under-appreciated aspect of what is happening in the West. One reason the people in charge are unmoved by public outrage is they have no conscience. Ms. Wolf’s Twitter profile, for example, features her discredited and unpublished book. Harold Bloom described her as Dracula’s daughter for good reason.

Again, this is something that is familiar on this side of the great divide. Mike Cernovich has become the universal example of the sort of sociopathic liar that inhabits the right side of the political spectrum. No matter how many times he is caught posting a whopper on-line, he keeps promoting himself. Normal people are embarrassed when they are caught in an error, much less an outright lie. The grifter, on the other hand, sees no difference between the truth and lie.

The truth is, this sort of behavior is far more common on the Left than on the Right or on this side of the great divide. Naomi Wolf is just one amusing example. There are thousands of people like her working a grift on left-wing audiences. Blacks, gays, Jews, trannies, socialists, you name the group on the Left and there is an army of grifters making a good living peddling nonsense to these people. It is fair to say that the Left is just a carnival of nonsense sold by carnies to the true believers looking for grace.

Grifters are a part of human society, but we seem to have entered into a unique phase in which the grifter is ubiquitous. Not so long ago, the book business had standards and the media did fire people for getting things wrong. Politicians went to jail for crimes and even rich people feared the law. The collapse of standards, combined with material excess seems to have resulted in a blossoming of grifters, like the sudden appearance of mold on an old piece of food. It is springtime for grifters.

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209 thoughts on “Springtime For Grifters”

  2. The worm may be turning.
    (A letter from an American Housewife and Mother)

    Open letter from an American Coward
    [excerpt]
    “If you have the courage to act where I do not,
    here is what I WILL do:
    – If you speak out against them, I will listen.
    – If you act against them, I will not stand in your way.
    – If they portray you as uncool, cringey, old-fashioned, unintelligent, or low-class, I will not laugh at you or think less of you.
    – If they call you a racist, sexist, xenophobe, homophobe, Nazi, granny killer, etc., I will not believe them, nor will I care.
    – If they call you a terrorist or an extremist, I will not assume that you are in the wrong.
    – When they ask me questions, I will lie, forget, or evade as I am able.
    – When they tell me their version of history, I will smile and nod and know they are liars.
    – If they dispossess you, I will share what I can.
    – If they martyr you, my children will learn your name as that of a hero.
    – If you have the courage to be shameless in opposing them, you will be honored in my house.”

    https://sarah-chamberlain-42954.medium.com/open-letter-from-an-american-coward-c60530a7a8e9

    (this is an American housewife and mother). 

    • Glad to see it

      Seems like it may some innately triggered response by ((())) to thwart any attempt at being barcoded by the Chinese Nazi running for mayor

  5. When you start to look, it is startling how many absolute losers and scoundrels are in positions of authority and granted the mantle of expertise. There aren’t more than a handful of people in Congress you would trust to manage a Subway but they make laws that crush regular people. Actors and athletes are generally dumber than a bag of hammers but millions adore them and hang on their every word and deed. We are ruled by an aristocracy of incompetents.

    • Z made a good point in his chat with (((Cotto))) about how America stands for nothing, and has no morals. Its true. What code do we possess? Who are we? In virginia, “we” are comprised of 1/8 foreign born. And even if we were not filled with the third world, what binds us together that is good and lasting? Commerce? Freedom? High standard of living? We are an empty shell of a people.

      But merry Christmas:

      Christ is born-glorify him! Christ comes down from heaven-go ye forth to meet him! Christ is on the earth-be ye lifted up above it! Oh sing to the Lord all thou earth!(Ps. Xcv 1) and to say all in one word, Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad (Ps. Xcv 11), because he that is now born is both of heaven and of earth! Christ has assumed our Flesh- exalt in fear and in joy; in fear, because of sin; in joy, because of hope! Christ is born of a Virgin: women! honor holy virginity, that you may become Mothers of Christ!

      Who would not adore him that is from the beginning? Who would not praise and extol him that is born in time? Darkness is at an end; Light is created; Egypt remains in darkness, and Israel is enlightened by the pillar of fire. The people that sat in the darkness now possess the bright light of knowledge and wisdom. The old things are passed away, and lo! All things are made new. The letter has given way, the spirit has triumphed; shadows have faded, the reality is come….The laws of nature are set aside; the world of Heaven is to be peopled; Christ commands it-let us obey.

      O clap your hands, all ye nations (Ps xlvi)! for a Child is born unto us, and a Son is given unto us. The emblem of his Government is upon his shoulder, for his exaltation shall come by the Cross; and his name shall be called the Angel of the Great Counsel, that is, of the Counsel of his Father (Isa. IX 6).

      Let the Baptist now cry out: Prepare ye the way of the Lord! I, too, will proclaim the virtues and power of this day. He that is without flesh takes flesh; the Word takes a Body; the Unseen is seen; the Intangible may be touched; the Eternal has a beginning; the Son of God is made the Son of Man- Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, and the same for ever (Heb. Xiii 8,) Let the Jew take scandal, and the Greek mock, and the heretic prate. They will believe when they shall see him ascending into heaven; and if not even then, at least when they shall see him coming down from heaven, and seated on his judgment-seat.

      St Gregory the Theologian, Bishop of Nazianzum, 38th discourse on the Theophania, or Nativity of our Lord

  6. there are these weird ads on this minor OTA channel, begging for money to help old jews left behind somewhere vaguely sovietish. supposedly they are shown delivering aide packages during winter, but no one’s breath is showing (so it’s not really cold). at one point thy even showed some footage of nazi troops!?

    it’s clearly a con, but i say it’s weird because only jews would care about other jews, so why advertise to a mass market?

    • In a week or two that ad will be picked up by someone like Hannity on the radio, the radio spot gets played for a few weeks, then in migrates to Fox News, etc

      Seems to be how that all works. They sort of ease it into the “conservative” man’s consciousness.

  10. She’s trying to cash in, are’nt they all. Where the fuck are the honest white people who have’nt sold their souls to the devil?

  11. With all of this grifting, I can’t get away from the idea that these are people lining up to show the ((()))s that they too can do the chutzpah. And that the ((()))s are sitting there like kings on a throne grading them on their efforts. Sort of like American Idol.

  12. I emailed Mr Evangilista a link to your article. It would make me happy to know he looks at it, if only for a second, and deep down knows hes a fraud.

  14. “It is fair to say that the Left is just a carnival of nonsense sold by carnies to the true believers looking for grace.”

    Ironic metaphor, as Christianity is the most successful grift of all time. Read pagan authors like Celsus on how the missionaries targeted women, children and slaves — the uneducated scum of the earth — to create their army of the saved. (Actually you can’t, because the Church burned all the copies of his book, but we do have some scraps left). Don’t trust pagan accounts? Just read the epistles; read Paul and John warning congregations against rival gospels, wandering preachers and tongue-speaking charismatics, going from town to town, demanding food and lodging; they also targeted women (which is why Paul tells women not to presume to know about the faith but ask their husbands). Of course, these are Paul and John’s rivals; stick with us, the real guys!

    How many millions of books, dissertations, webcasts, TV shows etc. have been concocted about a guy who didn’t exist in the first place?

    • you make good points, but many mysteries of the ancient world have been passed down to orthodox monasteries(which have taken a christian mantle) and vatican is the new library of alexandria, if you were to get rid of christianity, european people would be deprived of their heritage, which is the enemy’s goal.

      • Paraphrasing Schopenhauer: the spirit of Christianity is much more important than the religion

        I think that generally holds true. My experiences in Italy, for example, taught me that each town having a patron saint — really a minor deity — says the European animal has never quite given up on polytheism.

        And if you think about it, for all the Christian influences and often strong arm tactics, we have never changed the names of the days of the week. Wouldn’t you think the Church would have seen this as subversive to its mission? Questions, questions….

        • My experiences in Italy, for example, taught me that each town having a patron saint — really a minor deity —
          very true, oh how much the israelites cheered when protestants destroyed the catholic idols during reformation.
          israelite ideology states that they need to convince gentiles into stop believing in their own minor deities/saints, this will cut them off from Heaven protection and make them easy to control and destroy, which has actually happened, secular europeans are under israelite control.

    • Unless Pauls Gospel, THE Gospel is true. Thats the problem with many on the far right, they think Christianity is a good or a bad idea, when they never consider if its true or not. I think its because these people are not interested in what is true, they only want what they want. Their minds are dark, as St Paul says.

      • i think paul was the best apostle, he told christians not to cut their dicks like israelites do and not to bother with other old testament practices, paul was interesting cause he seemed to favour gentiles over israelites, he had a hellenic worldview, the other apostles though…it’s debatable.

        also, current christians focus on being pure, but paul told christians to be wise as serpents, which they’re obviously not, his mindset was a nice mix between israelite cunning and greek thinking.

  15. the basic errors she made in reading the historical documents were not caught by her advisor or the thesis review committee that eventually granted her a title based on this pile of nonsense.

    This hit me like a ton of bricks, when it should have been obvious. I’ve read plenty on the actual incident and her work, but it never occurred to me the entire “chain of custody” so to speak never picked up on this either. Damn. Talk about an indictment.

  16. how far away from Lysenkoism are we. For those not in the know – Soviet agronomy was a massive failure and ended up in famine/death because of belief in pseudoscience.

    • Uh, Its very close. Indeed.
      you are very harsh on Lysenko.
      He only said he could grow better wheat in Siberia, to avoid his death.

      How close? To quote Uncle Junior “I’ve got the Feds so far up my ass I can taste their Brill Cream.”

      Close enough?

    • Funny you should mention it. Just this past week I read of a campaign to “decolonize Botany.” Basically they’re demanding people stop referring to species as “native” or “heritage” or “invasive.”

      • IIRC the people we got from Africa had a vocabulary of maybe 600 words. Seems we are trying to accommodate their innate limitations

      • That’s the work of a hapa in England. Add in a nogger in German ballet decrying the art’s whiteness and we’re fully into Harrison Bergeron territory.

  17. Cernovich is a fraud. Tried to read his book – which is a joke. His tweets contradict themselves as does his beliefs or ideology. For some reason Scott Adams promotes him all the time – for what reason? To punk us?

  18. Years ago Scott Adams of Dilbert fame pulled a prank on a bunch of Silicon technorati. Where he was disguised as some big shot tech guy and gave a totally meaningless lecture to all these supposed brains and they swallowed it even though they had no idea what he really said.
    It’s the Dr.Fox effect. Which if summed up goes like this: As long as you appear sincere and somewhat charismatic you can sell people all sorts of bullshit.
    It’s clear in this age the bullshitters are charge in both camps.

    • and look at how someone like Madoff ripped off people who, we’re told at every turn, are simply brilliant

        • Sucked in Mad Dog Mattis, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and other luminaries.

          EH is working on her final con…staying out of prison. She ditched the vocal fry, black sweaters, dates a hotel fortune heir, and looks/acts like a ditzy blonde.

          She’ll get off

  20. It is time to put a bullet in the old saw about actions having consequences. Immunity from consequences is a feature of end stage empire. The only punishment is meted out to those who impede the looting. The corruption and decay simply will accelerate as the collapse draws ever closer.
    While not a major event despite the price tag, the most interesting aspect of the graft-riddled stimulus bill was the question not asked: who among the sponsors profited? It was not so long ago that would have been the immediate subject of inquiry. Now the looting is seen as inevitable as death itself.
    Everything now is a grift, and will continue to be such as long as there is anything left to take. Live accordingly.

  21. Reminds me of the Alan Sokal Hoax, Where a physicist wrote a bunch of mumbo jumbo as a paper on Post Modernism and it was accepted and praised by the big shots of PoMo philosophy,
    I think it’s quite clear there are no intellectual standards on the Left. As long as your thesis clicks all the right boxes you’re good to go. Heck it even allows white people to say they are black people, Indians and be accepted.
    If I was younger I would get on that grifter gravy train.

  23. Looking at other types of grift, does anyone else feel like the endless proliferation of microbreweries and dope stores is simply another form of grift?

    • The “legal” weed grift is a good example of moral ground being purchased by the prog-degeneracy lobby.

      Libertarian and “conservatives” abandoning cultural and moral positions for some sales n sin tax revenue to state and local dotgovs. For the children! Schools and pre-k programs get more money. Of course having 7-11 styled drug dealers on every corner is fine as long as its “regulated” and taxed. Oops.

      Craft brewing, otoh, emerged out of the shadow of big business lobby grifting from globo brewing as a resurgence of small, local breweries, which was the norm prior to prohibition in the US as an imported extension of German and Euro peoples and their traditions. The actual “small business” america.

      As is often the case with federal regulation, prohibition favored the larger breweries that could adapt, often by utilizing their infrastructure for alternative products.

      After it was repealed, the artisanal trade could not adapt to the superior scale and distribution of the majors, who quickly flooded the markets with their “brand”. Then marketing took over and decades of garbage product made with adjuncts and sold by whores was the norm.

      The fact that craft brewing has exploded is a contra movement to the lobby grift in big biz and should be supported.

      Regulations in alcohol, distribution, and interstate commerce are a mess. Craft is starting to work their own angles affording them larger footprints, but its still all about scale and DC influence.

      To your point, the business model of creating a hyped-up craft brand with the programmed exit strategy of selling to globo brew can be criticized for its leveraged model within our transactional economy, but its not so much a grift as it is a hijacking of the status of a craft to facilitate velocity of wealth creation. Basically what drives almost the entire “tech” and “media” industries as well.

      So the argument is more about the morality of serving ones community through a craft and where the ethics fall through the floor in terms of financialization. Which is something that affects our entire economic culture.

      As for the proliferation of faggotry, hipster price inflation, and other pozzes, craft brewing does attract certain elements that earn their criticism. Not enough to warrant the grift label IMO.

      It takes a lot of capital and stomach for risk to start a brewery. Its also dominated white men, many are former stem professionals. Many could also use some extra T but its an “our guys” industry at its core. Every small town should have one along side a bakery, grocer, etc.

      • Screwtape, just a small nit to pick.

        “For the children! Schools and pre-k programs get more money.”

        I know you are just paraphrasing the grifters’ sweet lie for literary effect. The above is an oft quoted assertion made by proponents of “committing sin for the overall good”, but it is fallacious.

        What always happens is that all State legislatures–who allocate the bulk of school funding–begin to decrease such funding after these revenue “enhancements” take effect. Within a few years, 5 or so, the funding trend is at the same point it would be expected to be had the enhancement not been put into effect. We’ve seen this with gambling and lottery initiatives, drug legalization, and other proposals for public nuisance taxes devoted to education.

        It is so common that the latest initiative on taxing the rich for school funding passed here in AZ had a clause in it stating that school funding levels had to remain at current levels and could *not* be decreased in the future. It is currently under challenge in the courts for this.

    • That seems to be the escape of choice for middle and working class white guys under 40 in Canada. Better than opioids I suppose.

      But weed makes them lose that fire and passion which we need. Don’t worry that your city and country and university are taken over by hostile aliens. Just have another bong rip, bro.

      It does make you forget. When I get high I don’t think my usual thoughts. But I’ve come to accept and even appreciate my burning fire, even though it’s harder to tend a raging fire than to simply put it out.

      • online shopping and the internet in general have allowed white people to avoid the reality of the people on the street and in the malls

        No mystery that the rise in mass foreigners has coincided with white people able to avoid going out in public to perform their everyday chores

        • Damn, good point. I didn’t realize this. But you’re completely right. Certain parts of the toronto area are actually 20-50% white yet you almost never see a white person at the mall or at the park. White people do hate diversity, they are just delusional about reality it seems.

        • Can confirm this. Work in retail. The vibrancy in the store lack the IQ and/or English speaking skills to shop online. Then there’s the driving in the parking lot.

  24. Slowly and inexorably, Z advances the idea that it all has to burn. Everyone on our side has been saying that everything is both fake and gay, but saying and truly believing are different things. That we find ourselves now living in a state where every institution is corrupt and hollow is a fact it takes time to absorb and the reason it takes so long to absorb is because the implications are profound.

    • It truly is a journey, isn’t it? Personally, I am finding the trip fascinating, my nose pressed to the window as the crazy passes by, like an endless string of car wrecks on an icy highway. The trick is to not let one get suicidal; one has to divorce himself, emotionally, from what one sees, and to possibly serve as a witness to it all at some later date, if one gets that far.

      On that happy note, Merry Christmas all, Drs. and kulaks alike!

      • Suicide? I’m more optimistic than I have ever been. When you *understand* what’s going on, it is so much clearer and easier. I feel worse for the poor white schmucks who still don’t get it. Once this divorce happens things get better.

        As a believer in Christ I am not afraid of the other side, or the evil in this one.

        This train has no brakes. And we sure ain’t on the Trump Train no more.

        • I can’t say I am optimistic here, it’s more of a putting one foot in front of the other, and being thankful for another day. There is a lot of certain ruin between where we are and where we will end up. My personal faith is not as solid as yours, but leans in the same direction. It is leavened with a fascination with fate, both personal and societal, and how one’s fate emerges from the sum total of what is done and what is not done, along with a certain measure of random luck thrown in.

          The divorce from the prevailing culture is like the breakup with the first serious girlfriend. It knocks you for a loop, you lose the personal moorings that you had built, and then you get on with your life, older and more wise.

    • Spending my Christmas with in-laws. 2 of them are 65 year old lesbians who are as left wing as they get and the first thing they wanted from me was to take them to a range to learn how to shoot a pistol for the first time.

      They’re convinced the “Proud Boys” are the second coming of the Nazi Party, which is insane on every level.

      440 million + guns in private hands in the US, trillions of rounds. Social media has everyone “siloed” and scared to death of everyone around them. (It generates clicks).

      This is not the sign of a healthy body politic.

        • I think de-mystifying gun handling goes a long way to supporting 2A rights. Most people see the small hole in the paper target and go “That’s it?” It’s not explosions and perfect headshots like in the movies.

          The fact that two old lesbians realize that the cops might not protect them is also a step in the right direction. Their railing against “the patriarchy” seems silly after all the summer riots with no police action.

          Ultimately explained the realities/responsibilities of carrying, and one backed down.

          Other one made it as far as the range, but demurred when she was told masks couldn’t be worn (glasses and safety goggles fog up, considered a safety hazard at this range). Covid, you see.

  25. The real con of the fake book is that it becomes the “original source” which 20 new books all cite as a reference. Thus, there is now a “consensus” and 20 different books which all “prove” the false assertion or the twisted beyond recognition “facts” from the first book.

    • Very true. I can’t tell you the number of times I chased down a footnote in my academic work, only to have the search end in a flat assertion. (To be sorta-fair to academics, though, this often isn’t dishonesty so much as it is convention. One thing you’re required to do in your dissertation (in the Humanities at least) is make obeisance to the Theory gods. It doesn’t matter if your diss has fuck-all to do with Foucault, Derrida, or the rest of the Froggy Incomprehensibles; you’re more or less required to cite them somehow. A lot of those “phantom footnotes” are that kind of thing).

      I had great fun with it while writing mine. One of my favorite tricks was to attribute the most banal possible statement to one of the Great Theorists, like so: The discovery of fire was, as Michel Foucault asserts in Discipline and Punish, “important” (Foucault 1963). Another was to quote some long passage of impenetrable gibberish, then proceed as if it self-evidently proved whatever point I was making. This works on eggheads 100% of the time — they’d rather die than admit they don’t understand a word of Althusser (etc.), so you can claim the Frogs are saying whatever you want them to say, and no one will ever challenge it.

    • Much like the 18 intelligence agency consensus that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, because John Brennan solely said it was so.

  26. Just 20 years ago, Michael A. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory University for faking research in his book “Armed America.” It made up statistics on how early Americans supposedly were not well armed. His fellow liberal scholars showed how, in fact, our forefathers were well armed. If the book had been published instead today, Bellesisles would be feted by the academic community and critiques would be branded “NRA propaganda.”
    https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/05/19/amazing-disgrace

    • I remember it well — he WAS feted by the academic community, and his critics WERE branded NRA propagandists. The guy who outed Bellesisles wasn’t an egghead in good standing — he was a lawyer and “gun nut” (of course) who happened to be taking MA History classes somewhere. Because of his legal work he was familiar with the relevant record groups, i.e. that they didn’t exist, or had been destroyed in a fire.

      After doing their best to destroy the guy, the AHA had to revoke Bellesilses’ Bancroft Prize (the Pulitzer/Nobel for American history, basically) and Emory had to fire him. That’s the only difference between then and now – they wouldn’t bother rescinding his prize or firing him, because he’s telling the “higher truth.”

      Don’t worry about poor Bellesisles, though. He landed on his feet. Google him up – he’s still employed in academia, of course, and last I saw (a few years back) he got busted peddling another lie…and this time they didn’t bother firing him.

    • Ah, yes. I was there at the time; fascinating bunch of nuttiness including, iirc, someone setting a small fire to trigger the sprinkler system which destroyed the data that supported his thesis.

      Amusing story from the same place & time. John Lott had just started publishing the results of his analysis of the liberalization of concealed carry which found that higher probabilities of victims being armed reduced the equilibrium level of robbery and suchlike. Pretty straightforward economic analysis: this activity gets riskier as more potential victims start packing heat, so maybe I’ll do less of it.

      Anyhow, they had Lott on campus to debate the question and the other side was represented by some faculty guy who literally responded to the empirical questions of Lott’s analysis with a story about how you might imagine being the victim of a street robbery but, because the crook thinks you might be armed in the wake of all this “shall issue” stuff, as you reach for your wallet the crook thinks you are reaching for your heater, so he shoots you dead. See? QED.

      Literally, that was it. And all the students were like, “Dude totally owned Lott and his bullshit numbers, man!” Fascinating to watch.

      • I remember debacles like that. Fun stuff. Very similar to the strategy conferences the ivory tower armchair generals were calling in 2003. I remember watching an instructor from the campus ROTC detachment demolishing the history department. “Oh, you don’t have any experience.” (The guy had several combat deployments). “You don’t have academic training” (he had an MA; had taught at West Point). “You don’t understand the cultural issues” (he was a Green Beret who actually spoke Arabic). Etc. But he hadn’t read “Gender Trouble” and refused to acknowledge that Malala girl (remember her?) as a secular saint, so he was just some grunting dummy in a silly hat.

  27. That was her dissertation? Jesus. I mean, I’m not surprised, but.. Jesus. Look, y’all, professional historian (retired) here: “Homosexuality in Victorian Britain” is one of the most over-worked subjects in contemporary academia. It is impossible — impossible – that her thesis advisers didn’t know that “death recorded” stuff. You could be gay as a tangerine in jean shorts in Victorian Britain, and unless you made a total pest of yourself, you’d never even get a visit from plod. Just to take the most famous example: Everyone on earth knew Oscar Wilde was gay. The only reason it came to trial is that Wilde sued — yes, Wilde was the plaintiff in his famous “sodomy” trial… which was actually a libel suit. Wilde could’ve lived his life a free man, if not for the stereotypically self-destructive behavior of… well, you know.

  28. Slightly OT, but what do people think of those who purport that events are fake? Sandy Hook, Orlando shooting, etc. Some are even saying the George Floyd video is green screen. I don’t see how this can possibly be accomplished, but maybe I’m naive. Thoughts?

    • And I[‘m not talking about REAL events that are claimed to be government jobs, like 911 or jfk, but actual entire concocted events

    • It’s just more grift, dude. It has a market because the shit we know is not true is so amazing that why wouldn’t these other things be lies, too? The Las Vegas shooting, Epstein suicide, the election… Well, why not Sandy Hook, too?

    • It’s FUD — fill up the pipes with so much ridiculous crap that the actual valid claims get lost in the chants of “lol conspiracy theorists!”

  29. It’s a matter of how wedded the cloud people become to their ideas. We see it today with the healthtators of the world. Despite graph after graph that shows masks and other NPIs not impacting the spread at all, they refuse to countenance any other form of prevention.

    • Sadly, Branch Covidianism has made the leap to being the new GlobHom state religion.

      • The Left seems to periodically attempt (and with some success) a complete hijacking of the medical system to drive one of their agendas. In the 80s of course it was “the AIDS crisis”. Of course some of the same people were involved in that frenzy as the current one, notably Fauci. Bad books and plays got written and attended by the Good People who were keen to show how they were not Bad People and that they cared about the Right Things. Then, as now, a disease that was relatively easy to avoid (i.e. don’t have buttsexxs) or affected only a small part of the population was promoted as being the new Black Plague.

        Fortunately, people back then still had enough “normality bias” that the AIDS hysteria never got much beyond the gay districts of big cities nor was it adopted by anyone outside the cultural elite. By about 1990 it was dead.

        I suspect that what happened then was a kind of Leftist health putsch that failed early on. The idea may have been to convert the health system so completely to focus on “AIDS awareness and prevention” that it would be impossible to practice or utilize medicine without paying (literally) for special “AIDS training” that would serve the dual purpose of enriching the Left and ending freedom of thought among the medical profession. This could then have been expanded into various crusades that would categorize traditional sexual morality and attitudes as “the real epidemic”. A recent example of this was those ridiculous health organizations this summer that tried to justify their lack of concern over Covid spreading at the riots by saying the “racism is the real virus”.

        This is one reason the modern Left switched its focus from pining for the Great Proletarian Revolution to simply infiltrating every possible institution. In this case if you can get enough Leftists in key spots in the medical establishment and wait for the right crisis you can pull off mini-revolution at least in that area of life. The end goal of course is to colonize all of daily life.

        When these efforts fail they (in many cases the same exact people) simply try again later. One other advantage of giving up on the Big Revolution is that you don’t get shot for treason if you fail. This is the reason we must emphasize severe punishments for Leftist activism in whatever civilization we can salvage from the wreckage of this one. What we’ve tended to do throughout the 20th century and right up to now is the equivalent of punishing armed robbers, after years of deliberation, by making them pay (most of) the money back, make a fake apology, and promise on scout’s honor not to do it again. This is not how you keep sociopaths from destroying your society.

    • Yep, and they are studiously avoiding doing the one thing that WILL work eventually with 100% certainty: rigorous enforcement of borders completely closed except to travelers willing to undergo 40 day quarantine. Quarantines work to keep diseases out in the first place, but international airports all over the West continue to spread disease while we are supposed to suffer in silence at home. Social distancing works, but needs to be 6000 kilometers, not 6 feet. Apologies to Frank Herbert, but the diversity must flow.

      I hope I live long enough to see the belly fat of double-chinned globalists like RoveHo crackling in bonfires.

      • They’re setting us up for Tier 4 + Calais More.

        A repeat of “keep the airports open, go to the Chinatown festival…OMG Easter and Thanksgiving superspreaders!!”

        The first run was a test. It worked.

        They’ll keep replaying, so please buckle up. Travel and assembly are about to get restricted, I fear.

        Gov. Awesome is trying to ban travel here in bellweather Cali, so f*** him, I’m going to see my irascible, dying best friend for one last Christmas.

        Thank Goodness I get that, at least, so Merry Christmas to all and best hopes for our New Year. Bless you all!

  30. The left’s grifts have been so successful they are now regarded as unquestionable mainstream truth: climate change hysteria, men can simply announce themselves to be women and vice versa and that makes it true, diversity is our strength, blacks are just as smart as Whites on average, systemic racism, rampant police violence against innocent blacks, COVID hysteria, Biden won the election, and so on. I could go on for screenfuls, I am sure.

    • They are “unquestionably mainstream truth(s)”, but they are also shit-tests that we are all constantly made to endure. Every person will embrace and praise every last one of them, and the one caught not clapping while the endless applause for them carries on, will be taken out and shot.

  31. What are some of the lies that best prove that Cernovich is a grifter? He has always struck me as a grifter and bandwagon rider so I have never paid that much attention to him.

    • The replies to that tweet are encouraging. Can I hope that living amongst zombies (Portland) has given me a false impression of the gullibility of the average American?

      • I’m in the P-tard metro area too. Send me a PM or DM or whatever they call it or email the address below if you want. I’m actually out in the burbs to the west a bit but I just had make a foray into the Heart of Darkness today. Most of the now-abandoned downtown area is now a vast homeless encampment with tents all along the sidewalks. Didn’t actually see too many maskies today, mostly hobos. Their disdain for the mask religion is encouraging. I’ve decided that they are actually the only people there I relate to anyway.

  33. Maybe if the Victorians had executed people for sodomy, we wouldn’t now have to be subjected to the annual celebration of Sodom and Gomorrah that is Pride Month.

    • Yeah – it’s a classic case of the Right getting angry because the Victorians were unjustly slandered as being mean to gays. But the truth is that they very much should have been hanging them, and especially the case that the interviewer brings up – which was the sexual assault of a six-year-old boy.

      But as is true in the dat science world and is true with special force in the history world: the least important thing is being correct.

    • If I could only push a button that would dissappear all sexual degenerates, blax and most of all, white leftists what a wonderful world it would be.

  34. If identity politics is the rope the left hangs itself with, MSM and social media is the platform that supports the gallows. If the substance of their existence is lies, then they are nothing more than ghosts haunting the halls of truth.

  35. BLM was an all-time great grift.

    Corporations dumped $2 billion into BLM and they’re already crying about how broke they are.

    • Thank God these people just want to enrich themselves with the billions instead of effectively using it for social change.
      With as much funding these grifts get, we would be in a full commie state by now.

      • a full commie state by now.

        Oh, the busy little bees of the Left are working on this.

        Just you wait.

  36. I grew up in the Midwest where winter meant salt on the roads and every automobile over 5 years old had corroded fender panels. When this corrosion was still mild, a quick and temporary fix involved Bondo and a cheap paint job. Severe corrosion meant replacing the panels altogether, or junking the car and buying new. DC, academia, and the media are now corroded beyond repair. That is the difficult truth that we must face. And if we do not, we become part of the corrosion.

  37. Ppl on the right complain about the US education and university system being dumbed-down and overly politically correct, but it is worse in the UK and much of Europe.

    It would seem like there are two definitions of grifting : profiting from spreading falsehoods/misinformation –and or–monetizing an audience, such as selling merchandise or soliciting donations.

    They are both bad in varying ways. Conservative grifting has no intellectual pretense: it is the opposite (such as ‘liberal tears’ mugs and other cringe stuff). Liberal gifts are pseudo intellectualism. Conservative gifts appeal to the left-side of the bell curve whereas liberal gifts appeal to those who may only have IQs in the 100-110 range who want believe they are 130+ and are not smart enough to know that they are being sold BS.

  38. Honest men live dangerous lives…in the kingdom of lies. When everything is fake and virtue turned into monstrous perversity, the only course of action that remains is…defiance.

    So we stand silent, furious vigil as one by one the lights go out throughout the world.

  39. I went to her twitter profile to see if she had chutzpah to title herself Dr. Well of course she did, all these so called educated poseurs on twitter do so even when they are disgraced. The foundation of her phd is more invalid than the bullshit ones academia gives out.

    • This is interesting. I also went to the profile of ‘Dr’ Wolf. Upon scrolling down she appears to be highly skeptical of the UK’s Con-vid measures, and also, from one retweet ‘anti forcing people to mask up’, if you’ll forgive the verbosity.

      Another thing is that she has a quote from Orwell on that page. A quote that mentions how all trust in the institutions is misplaced (broadly speaking); how is it that these people don’t think that they control the institutions. Perhaps this illusion is given by a nominally conservative politician being our PM. Perhaps she’s nuts.

        • Sometimes people are right, even when they got the right answer by a bad route. She is probably right for the wrong reason. Like because it doesn’t go far enough.

      • She, like all women and all grifters, is open to advancing whatever viewpoint is most useful at any time.

    • If I was an actual medical doctor, I would push for a new title for my profession, like instead of Doctor Jones, MD Jones, to separate from the phony PhDs.

      • “Physician” there ya go, all done. Now the “doctors” can stop using the title they borrowed in the late 1800’s from millenia-older doctoral professions (priest, professor, lawyer).

    • I went to her Wiki profile and what do you know? She was born to a Jewish family!
      What are the odds!!?

  41. Ms. Wolf and her thesis advisor and her publisher and those who promoted her, well, their intentions were good. sodomy, we have discovered together as a society, is and always has been, a good! Anything that advances that truth, and discovers the evil enemies of sodomy, is good! Historical accuracy and scholarship is White and Male, and thats bad!

    It all ends up cupcakes!

    • Oxbridge and the Ivies are all about buying one’s way into the vibrant GlobHom grifting network.

      This is why they fight tooth and nail against admitting talented white guys from flyover land and non-Chicom Northeast Asians.

  42. Another totally corrupt practice is book-advance-as-bribery.

    It is made known to a lot of political figures that if they help the establishment do something dirty, the establishment will give them millions for a book “advance,” even if it’s well-known that the book will not make money.

    Like James Comey’s book, for example. He knew that if he helped with the coup, he’d get a big payday for his crummy ghostwritten book (with the sinister title A Higher Loyalty, no less) that nobody reads. It’s really just straight-up bribery.

    • If you were a farmer, and someone offered your neighbor a bribe to poison your crop, you might take that personal and be moved to quick action as a result. But if the harm is made remote and indirect, the likelihood of corrective action approaches zero and the grifting disease will fester and grow. Our society is very sick, and it cannot heal when evil operates through an endless chain of middlemen.

      • Interesting analogy. Very similar parable appears in the Bible somewhere, except the enemy is sowing weeds in good guy’s field.

  43. Dracula’s daughter. That’s hilarious. Apparently her father was a Dracula scholar. That sounds like important work! But this did remind me I have the Western Canon on my bookshelf and I just pulled it out to peruse. Harold Bloom was very funny

  44. Naomi Wolf also claimed that anorexia kills 150,000 women every year because of unrealistic beauty standards.

    • She also was freaking out about Ws presidency, in 2008 no less, claiming there was gonna be another 6 million and that Bush was not gonna leave office.
      Karen Straughn (an MRA who goes by Girl Writes What) made an absolute fool out of her at some libertariantard convention, I think it was called porkfest.

    • Of course, it’s Christmas Eve. Merry Christmask, I had forgotten seeing that many of my colleagues have been brow beaten into submission by the State’s bizarre lockdown legislation. It didn’t take much for them to submit, either.

  46. You knew we were getting into some serious ethical problems when politicians and the sycophants who surround them began writing books nobody wanted to read, but which became “best sellers” anyway. Having the donor class buy up your latest bilge en masse and simply hauling them off to the nearest waste disposal site was the sign that caught my eye back the early nineties. The money flowed, the propaganda was broadcast, and the influence pedaled in one smooth grift.

    • books nobody wanted to read, but which became “best sellers” anyway.

      This was the thing that used to interest me when I worked for Borders. The speed with which a book could be shat out, that the marketing cogs could whir and that the ‘best seller’ charts could be ‘reported’ was a good inkling of how interconnected all this tripe is.

      I used to think that if someone read, then good for them, an edu-mah-cated fellow. But when you see the crap that people do read you just think they should’ve stuck to the TV.

      I must at least thank my stint at the bookshop for this insight. What a shame that most of my colleagues were what we would now call ‘wokists’.

      • When my older sister was in public high school my mother went to a PTA meeting and the English teacher started waxing on about how she didn’t care if her kids read comic book she just wanted them to read. My mother actually stood up yelled at her and said my thirteen-year-old just read Atlas Shrugged you’re out of your mind and walked out the door.

        • she didn’t care if her kids read comic book she just wanted them to read.

          Heh. I’ve never really been a comic person, but I have a friend who was into the Marvel Universe stuff. Every time I’ve seen him over the last three years, he has a new story about how woke comics of this particular vintage have become. I ask why he won’t just stop reading, or find other comics (presumably, there must be some)? Anyway, he still reads them…

          • Comics were fairly messed up when I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s.

            Now they are 100% toxic and should be avoided at all costs.

          • After Frank Miller, it was all garbage. He was the last comic writer who understood the reactionary nature of the vigilante. The Dark Knight Returns, Year One, 300, and Born Again are Illiadic classics. No Joke.

          • I had fat freddy sign a comic, until then I had no idea him, phinnieus and Franklin were based on actual people.
            Tried to watch a documentary about R crumb. Total degenerate, chipper shredder candidate for sure.

          • Send him a link to Alt-Hero.
            The army of 40 year old men reading comics is kind of disturbing. Just one of many signs of our degenerate culture.
            But it is also a sign that they are looking for heroism and manly virtues so sorely lacking in our pop-culture.

        • Whether or not you like to read is mostly genetic. Certain kids can be pushed; others require pictures or they fall asleep.

          • What storytellers are for !

            I remember my 4th grade teacher reading to us James and the Giant Peach, we all huddled in a cozy circle with rain outside, and we were enthralled

        • Anyone who read Atlas Shrugged at 13 was changed forever. Just getting to the end of the book was a journey of determined persistence and existential passion. Thank you Whitney, you just brightened my day. And Merry Christmas to you.

          • Whitney, you make me laugh and trigger many a bygone memory. As in, I remember when young women read romance novels as how-to manuals, and we young men thought that we could live up to those idealistic standards.

          • we young men thought that we could live up to those idealistic standards.
            you telling me I’ll never become a billionaire pirate who falls for plain housewives?

          • You know, in contemporaneous literature from the 18th century the dangers of women reading romance novels comes up quite a good bit. I also read a lot of that in my teenage years. Still sticks with me. But the big one for me from 18th and 19th century literature was you never expose children to adult issues. You shield them from all the ugliness of contemporary politics and national issues until they are past the Age of Reason. I also think about that one because it just screams out to be reinstated

          • Paraphrase from one of the founding fathers, “Have your children read practical or inspiring books: they will get more than enough of the low and ugly in their day to day life.”

          • Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. One of the pathologies of our modern culture is that we focus too much attention on the negative, such as the object of this post (Ms. Wolf). We are wired to react to strong negatives with fight or flight, but an inspiring and uplifting tale can impact every day of your life going forward.

          • That is an under appreciated aspect of Ayn Rand’s work. A woman’s portrait of the ideal man. 50s 50 Shades.

          • The only underappreciated aspect of any of Rand’s turgid doorstoppers is its absorbent value as toilet paper.

            Rand is for people who desperately want others to see them as intellectuals.

          • A former friend’s wife is a grade school “literacy” teacher in Westchester county in New York… Funny I don’t ever recall having a literacy teacher in the late 70’s/early eighties when I was going to grade school.

            She was very impressed with herself and would wax poetic on how she felt teachers weren’t respected enough or paid enough and how she “taught children how to read”…of course they were and still are childless…

          • It’s especially pretentious when you realize the history of movies and television shows is nothing more than the successful attempt at making stage plays and vaudeville shows widely and cheaply available to the masses. This is especially noticeable in movies made before WWII, because they have lots of static shots and few sets, just like stage plays, and many early writers, directors and actors cut their teeth on stage.

          • Same thing happen on TV in the early days. Watch any of the early Lone Ranger shows. Directly taken off the radio program. No idea just how to replicate in film the imagined action of the radio show, so lots of scenes showing Lone Ranger and Tonto standing facing each other and talking.

          • The play scene is really degenerate and has of Shakespeare is mixed race and same sex couples. I was a regular Shakespeare attendee in DC’s Folger Theater and it was all interracial and gay

        • They would have been better off with comic books. Atlas Shrugged is just utter crap written by a freak who absolutely hated us and who was a degenerate who openly and hatefully mocked our religion.

          • Moved past Objectivism, pretty quickly. But remember, in the mid-70s there were precious few ferries across the river (as Z would put it) And limited to what was on the library shelves. “Gulag Archipelago” and “One Day in the Life…” were the two that really scored in high school.

          • I disagree, not with your personal conclusion but with your opinion of its usefulness. I have never met someone who read Rand and wound up going woke or even “moderate Dem” if that were still a thing. However Rand was part of my journey to this side, as well as for some others I personally know.

          • I’d have to disagree, Valley Lurker. I didn’t actually read Rand until 5 years ago (long after my political journey ended here with the DR), but as a freshman in college I met dozens of women who considered themselves Rand aficionados . . . and they were all woke leftists, even back then in 1976.

          • Women have a different experience than men, I am sure you are shocked to hear. Women read Rand and remember the romantic relationships and sex scenes, men read it and remember the ethics.

          • Lots of people here took the Galt Ferry on their way over the River. There’s half a dozen regular commenters here that were full on Randroids. SamlAdams is right: if you are smart enough and read Rand in high school, it is almost guaranteed to derail the train to normieville. It brought me out of the silliness of “Free to Choose” Friedmanian libertarianism.

          • Ayn Rand’s “philosophy,” to use the term generously, can be summarized as follows: “I sure would like to be raped by a handsome sociopath.” Needless to say, it takes a lot intellectual contortions to work a political and economic policy from a dysfunctional sex drive, hence the length of her books.

          • Shockingly, yes, women are attracted to handsome, rich, intelligent men with dark triad traits. Please go read some heartiste on the Wayback. Next, are you going to breathlessly inform us that IQ distribution varies by race? Biology is real, even for women.
            If that is all you got out of Rand, you are too short for this ride.

        • Jimi Hendrix will always be best known as a rock guitarist. A quote attributed to him: “Half the people in the Army read comic books and the other half just look at the pictures.” I don’t know if the attribution is true, but it’s consistent with his dry sense of humor.

        • Sounds like every parent proud of their 16 year old reading Harry Potter. Uh, it’s a kids book, you know that, right?

          Hell, give the 13 year old boys the “Shades of Grey” trilogy. They’d read that (smut parts, anyway), and they might learn something useful about women’s say-they-want/actually-want way of speaking.

        • I get your point, but comic books were not always the complete and utter trash they are today. To wit, “Classics Illustrated” . I grew up reading these and they were instructive for a preteen. The first I read, “Caesar’s Conquests”. It was read again in the original when I found it in the bookstore Freshman year university.

          You can Google and find all of these online today.

          • There is little value in simply knowing facts. The purpose of studying history is to allow one to draw meaningful inferences TODAY. Comic books are kids stuff that retards the mental landscape and cripples the examination of what one is reading for meaningful, useful content.

            I knew Western civilization was finished when the term ‘graphic novel’ was taken seriously. That other people would argue with the self evident nature of that travesty is further proof.

      • Look how quickly Lt. Colonel (to you) Doughboy got a book contract. Unless he’s writing the Michelin Guide to DC Pastry Shops, fail to see what he has to say that is of remotest interest.

        • Watch “The Critical Drinker” bit about The Island of Dr Moreau. Hilarious train wreck, but you’ll never say anything good about V Kilmer again.

          (Top Secret was a funny movie though)

          • Never saw the movie, but was privileged to see Kilmer in his one man play about Mark Twain (and got tapped on the shoulder and spoken to by him as he walked through the sitting audience to get on stage). So I have a soft spot for the guy.

    • The Scientologists used to do this with anything Hubbard or other stars of the cult wrote. It how dreck like Battlefield Earth got to be best-sellers and even made into a terrible movie starring John Travolta, a big name Scientologist. I wonder if our ruling class book industry is deliberately copying Scientology or if this is just how all cults operate. Oh yeah, Merry Christmas and a Heteronormative New Year!

    • I tried to be honest and fair. Back in the day I decided to read “The Audacity Of Hope” by Barkie Obuuthole. Although it doesn’t sound like it now – I was prepared to give him a fair shake. I got two chapters into it, and it was so full of claptrap … I threw it out. I stopped buying books altogether at that point, because they were expensive and often unreadable stinkers written by ridiculous people.

        • “Read before you buy”…and bring your own snacks in and sit in our lazy boys…we will put books back on the shelves!

          Knew that was a doomed business model.
          Love bookstores though.
          I’ll truly regret seeing them fall into the dustbin of history, even if they are manned by the woke. Still spend a stupid amount of $ at the local independent, but it won’t turn the tide. Real books are toast.

      • Buy ’em used. Thriftbooks.com. No money for Amazon.
        Gave a older nephew my copy of Marcus Aurelius “Meditations” for Christmas, bought myself a replacement for $4.00.
        The 20 somethings are begging for adult oversight: HELP THEM.

        • If I could go back in time to my college library’s annual sale – God – I picked up some wonderful things but far, far too little. Hindsight, story of my life it sometimes seems.

      • I picked up “Audacity of Hope” after Obama gave the 2004 keynote address……gave up after about 20 pages, as the man was a clear headcase wondering if he was black enough.
        Yet the Dems put him on display as a potential candidate for President. Turns out they were right.

    • Book publishing deals and speaking fees for politicians are a legal form of bribery. Its still mostly looked down upon to hand a bag of cash to a politician in return for a political outcome (at least this was generally true until the recent Biden family revelations). However, its totally okay for an individual or an organization to give a politician a book advance or a speakers fee in return for a favor. This type of quid pro quo transaction is now ubiquitous on both sides of the political aisle.

      I have direct experience with this type of transaction. A retired county level politician proposed to deliver a tax payer funded benefit to my organization (not a big benefit, low 5 figures). The motivation for this funds transfer was to encourage a type of small businesses to do work in the county. The politician made arrangements with current members of the county government to pass a resolution allowing for the transfer of taxpayer funds. The details of transaction were worked out in advance, and the county government eventually approved the financial transfer in a unanimous vote with little public discussion. The retired politician that brokered the deal collected a 3 figure fee from each company that benefited from the transaction. I didn’t participate in this transaction (my organization didn’t benefit and also didn’t pay for the services of the retired politician). I do think that this is representative (at a small scale) of the type of transactions that we see everywhere in our political system.

      • Yes, another time honored graft opportunity is the nonprofit corporation. Legally they can’t contribute to political campaigns. However no law says they can’t hire whomever they want, including make work jobs for politically favored people. It’s not bribery if if you’re paying somebody a salary, is it? 😎 Hunter Biden did a version of his, although it was with a foreign entity. We haven’t heard much about this Caper, and I’d wager we’ll hear Nary a peep come January 21st.

      • House Speaker Tip O’Neil got some flak for the book bribe back in the 80’s.

        Innocent days. No one cares about what is obvious payoffs and money laundering anymore (Netflix/Obamas, anyone?)

          • No, I don’t believe as a business model it is, or ever will be.

            Kinda makes the $50 million down payment to the O’s look rather suspicious, yes?

  47. High trust was the biggest scam.

    Or now that I think of it, not enforcing it was the biggest mistake. Tar and feathers worked well.

      • We are in the pillaging stage of an end stage empire. The only consequences are felt by those who stand in the way of the looting. We discuss how long this can continue, sometimes oblivious that it could all just implode tomorrow. We just choose to think of an expiration date in the distance, and not solely because it is more likely. The closest analogy is we do not dwell on our impending deaths because it would create inertia, or in this case accelerate the sacking of the aged New Rome.

        • The debasement of Roman denarius was child’s play compared to today’s Federal Reserve. Lot of “potential energy” in that balance sheet.

          • No doubt, and no doubt the collapse will be far sharper and quicker as a direct result. The earlier decline took longer than the United States has been a quasi-nationstate.

          • No doubt, and no doubt the collapse will be far sharper and quicker as a direct result. 
            don ‘t know if this is good news, schwab actually implied the israelites wish to collapse usa before 2030 cause they wanna create a global federation, which usa will be a part of.

        • Got one of those ubiquitous “Free Dinner” (for estate planning) fake gift cards in the mail. As my husband said, “What estate?” And then added, “Can you first guarantee America will exist as a country or the dollar as a holder of value?” They are all part of a passion play while we look on, utterly bemused and disgusted.

          • True. It is similar to retirement planning. The more common question is “how much do I need?” Close behind is “what about inflation?” Catching up is “will there still be a functioning nation to back up the currency?” That last is the question that soon will loom largest.

        • Gracchi Brothers were 130s B.C. Their erosion of mos maiorum (done to circumvent a corrupt Elite) and introduction of mob violence is the beginning of the end of the Republic. Rest is a long period of decline, civil wars, and corruption until Augustus takes power, and even then he managed only a decade or so of reversal before the Elite went back to their old ways.

        • Between 150 BC and 100 BC you will encounter very few Romans of note. The last half of the 2nd century BC was dreadful on many levels. Read Mommsen to get a handle on it.

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