If a man had fallen asleep in 1980 and woke up in this age, he would be amazed at many things. We can easily think of the technological stuff like social media, Zoom calls and mobile devices. Then you have the cynical stull like the failure get back to the moon, much less Mars. One less obvious change is the explosion of entertainment and the public obsession with being entertained. Forty years ago, people did not expect to be constantly entertained throughout their day.
One aspect of the saturation of entertainment is how public affairs transformed into something like Vaudeville. People dream up new acts and new characters to play on-line and on television. If the act works, we get a flood of imitators. Once that runs its course, someone cooks up a new way to separate from the rest of the performers and they have their run on the big stage. Politics in this age is pure theater, centered on various acts making claims to certain audiences.
Unlike jugglers or sword swallowers, political theater is not transactional. In the conventional form, entertainment is about the performer getting your attention, which causes you to pay to see their act. There is no connection between the audience and the performer, beyond the implicit agreement that he will do his best to entertain you and you will applaud when he does. In political theater, you are supposed to care about the performer and do what you can to boost his career.
This post over at American Greatness gets at this odd nature of political entertainment with regards to Conservative Inc.. The post is a takeoff on something Michael Anton said about the conservative rackets. Wealthy people lavish conservative rackets with cash, despite the fact they accomplish nothing. In fact, it is fair to say that Conservative Inc. is just an enabler of the things they pretend to oppose. In other words, they lose on purpose, and they know they are losing on purpose.
The post goes on to talk about how easily conservative donors are duped by people like Jonah Goldberg or Ramesh Ponnuru into handing over cash. National Review just raised $100,000 on-line despite having no audience outside the institutions of Conservative Inc. and even that is debatable. The Bulwark and Dispatch have billionaire support even though they have no audience. Why is it that smart people with money are easily fooled by these hustlers?
One reason is the nature of political entertainment. When you watch a movie or television show, it is a passive act. There is a clear divide between you and the performers on stage. In political theater, each member of the audience is drawn into the act, feeling like they have an impact on the performance. Even when it is not interactive, the person watching tends to feel like his caring about what he sees and hears can change what is happening in the show.
Jonah Goldberg is a useful example in that he is one of the more successful political entertainers of this age. He is also a creature of the new political entertainment that emerged in the 1990’s with the widescale adoption of the internet. He started out fetching coffee for the far-left extremist Ben Wattenberg, who had a long running show on state television. In prior times, this would have been about as far as Goldberg would go in the realm of current events programming.
Instead, he landed the role of internet slacker for National Review’s new on-line venture that was aimed at a younger and hipper crowd. Goldberg’s role required him to blend official dogma with snarky pop culture references. Early in his role, he often made jokes about his slacker lifestyle. He invited readers to e-mail him, and he would often post about the exchanges. Later, comments were added to the site, and he would respond to them from time to time.
Goldberg got famous and very rich despite being as dumb as a goldfish and peddling boilerplate neoconservatism. The reason for this is his fans felt like they were a part of his act and there were having an impact on what he was saying. Despite the fact that he and his neocon cronies have slithered back to the Left, many of his fans still follow him at his new venture. In other words, even after it is clear that Goldberg would happily gas his readership, many remain engaged with him.
The main result of the relationship between political performers and their marks is that they are able to transfer their interests onto the audience. That is, the audience for this stuff cares about things that are good for the guys who they follow. The donors who get to have dinner with the team at the Dispatch are not thinking about the issues being promoted so much as the people promoting them. They feel like they are part of the show and have some input on the performance.
Conservative Inc. is a long sophisticated confidence game. It was not always this way, but it evolved into a racket in the 1990’s. It coincides with the explosion of mass media and the emerging entertainment culture. Going back to the Rip Van Winkle at the start of this post, he would be baffled by how people identify themselves by the types of entertainment they consume. Putting your sports teams in your social media profile would seem bizarre to a man from the 1980’s.
This is something Ryszard Legutko noted in his excellent book, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. Legutko is a polish politician who was involved in the Solidarity Movement. Among many excellent observations, he notes the lack of seriousness in liberal democratic politics. Everyone is consumed with leisure and being entertained. Adults are encouraged to act like children, even in areas like politics which should be the domain of the sober minded.
In this light, the boiling off of serious political actors from the large public stages is perfectly rational. The serious critics of the war machine, for example, may be correct in their observations, but they get marginalized because they do not offer the larger audience the thing they crave. They are the party poopers who yell at the people at the party for not caring about some cause. Worse yet, they remind adults that they are acting like children, so they are shunned.
The same can be said for the fringe on the other side. Immigration patriots are not littering their commentary with pop culture references. They are not flattering their audience with the promise that if they care enough, the ending of the show will be just as they imagined. Instead, they warn about demographic collapse and that is just a total downer, and no one wants to hear it. The most hated man is the serious person in a room full of silly people looking for a good time.
What this suggests is that outsiders have two choices. One is to put on the grease paint and get out there and please the crowd. The people demanding Medicare for all need to make it fun to care about such things. The Straussian critics of conservatism have to put on a better show, out-clown people like David French. Otherwise, the alternative is to work the small stage waiting for when the times need serious men and the people in charge are not up for the task.
Those are not pleasant options, but adults are supposed to accept that often the choices are not very good. Serious people know that the best you can do sometimes is play a bad hand so you can play the next hand. They are also supposed to know that society is a big complicated thing and you cannot easily alter it. often, you just have to let things play out and prepare for it. The antidote to frivolity is not more frivolity but a sober-minded acceptance of reality, no matter how unpopular.
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I used to think that our political system was an essential pressure release valve. It vents off the heat and steam of our roiling civil, and not so civil, society. And one should expect the ridiculous and absurd to appear among the super heated emissions. Now I’m convinced it is a distracting side-show, like a prestidigitator’s right hand. It is actively a-flutter out in front where the audience cannot help but see it…while the other hand skirts fertively and unseen under the table, positioning the rabbit, or dove, or whatever for the finale. OT, but I need to put in… Read more »
did you take a wrong turn at reddit?
I was waiting for that poster to drop to his/her knees and start slurping.
And yet their natal land remains mired in third world poverty and caudillismo politics. Can it actually be true that America has “magic dirt” that transforms Mexicans into Enlightenment Europeans?
Ship ’em out of my country. Let them be masculine in their country
“…despite the fact they accomplish nothing. In fact, it is fair to say that Conservative Inc. is just an enabler of the things they pretend to oppose.” That is no small thing. Its apt to say that Conservatives are the Atlas titan holding up the system. Defusing energy, managing policy defeats, and winning nominal battles through elections and full time careers. Ironically enough conservatives are the rock ribbed stalwarts that they opaquely imagine as the “other guy”, the less sophisticated nimrod conservative. When they themselves are the most veracious and uncompromising defenders of the status quo. Its why the elites… Read more »
I disagree somewhat. I blame … Brandon Tartikoff. Ours is a profoundly commercial culture, and corporate leaders have taken their pages from him. The internet made it just worse, not better. Starting with the “Rural Massacre” when CBS canceled high rated rural shows: Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, Gomer Pyle etc. because of rural not urban demographics, TV from which everything else follows went to low rated, low appealing but favorable demographics of young White women, and blacks. Thats why our culture and hence politics are centered around that. Tartikoff at NBC pioneered this approach, with Cheers, St. Elsewhere,… Read more »
In every field I know anything about, the two great artistic modes that have been obliterated because women don’t “get” or desire them are the traditional heroic/epic and the materially innovative avant-garde. There’s no publicly known film, painting, book, or piece of music from this century that couldn’t have been made in the last, or that *would* have been made by any serious past artist. Our guys tend to be African-minded about art and think it’s useless except as ritual affirmation, but the reason we know *for sure* that society’s already been destroyed is because interesting, new, and potentially lasting… Read more »
Network TV ratings have totally tanked even from the historically low levels they were at a few years ago. The few commercials and promos I see for shows are absurd. I saw a promo that ABC was debuting a show called “Queens” last night. The premise is that four black 40 something pop singers are trying to reunite their hip hop group for a chance at recapturing their fame. As you might imagine, the ratings were terrible, the debut drew an audience of under 1.8 million viewers. ABC must not care as long as Woke Capital is willing to spend… Read more »
Yes, and Netflix just caved, “apologizing.” Everyone knows that the power the woke wield is pretty much just young White women. Everything and anything has to be tailored to their woke sensibility. I assume that Netflix is just going to cancel Chappelle, dump the special, and double down on the woke. They are terrified of their own employees. It will be an interesting Winter. No food and no goods on shelves during Christmas, the woke waging war on Christmas, freezing during blackouts and sky high energy prices. We’ve never had full woke with big shortages. People will blame Green, China,… Read more »
yeah, i wondered who they thought the audience was for that particular turd.
Well, there are roughly 40 million blacks, of whom half are women, which means the vast majority of black women didn’t think the show worth their time.
prolefeed is not a fictional device.
Out clown David French? Unfathomable.
Impossible. Every other Monday French is close to coming out as gay ’cause Jesus told him to do it.
This is why the Establishment was so quick to shut down and marginalize the chans and other right-wing writers. It is why they have tried so hard to shut down Fuentes. It is because the stuff coming from these sites are funny and entertaining. The memes are good and convincing to even the most ardent griller (“It’s OK To Be White”, etc.). They emerged from an online culture of true meritocracy, where only the best and funniest things stick around. When they started calling Con Inc. a bunch of cucks, Con Inc. was just completely flabbergasted and responded the only… Read more »
A young white woman from South Africa came to America in the 60s to attend university. She remarked how odd it was that everyone’s conversation was filled with references to television shows, everyone was wild for something called Star Trek.
Since apartheid S.A. had only one state TV channel, and most people had no tv at all as the farms were too far out, she said our concerns and politics were undeciferable to her.
South Africa didn’t get television until 1976. Based Boers back when.
Thanks, that’s right. The lass had said something like “since we had no television, only one state radio channel”; my memory of that magazine article needed a jog.
So uncivilized! It must’ve been a “televisually educated” black (a quote by the black president of BET) who invented the artificial heart. The blue eyed white devil steals everything!
Ha! What was the name of that great off-Broadway play or dinner show in New York, the Mafia wedding?
The actors circulated in the crowd a bit, then, after the bride kissed the groom, the audience went with the cast to a Mob restaurant where further fun ensued…
“Tina and Tony’s Big Wedding”, wasn’t it?
Tony and Tina’s Wedding. Played in Chicago for over fifteen years. My Lovely Mrs. attended a show.
Yes! Loved that show. Saw it in NYC. Felt very much a part of the action.
Totally off topic, but: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10111693/White-House-details-plans-vaccinate-28M-children-age-5-11.html
They want to eliminate and sterilize as many young ones as quickly as possible.
Damn, 3g, a California school district is asking parents to pack cold weather gear with their kids because the kids are going to be eating their school lunches outside.
In the rain.
As part of their “Covid-safe” plan.
Almost as if the school wants these kids to get colds and flu’s, ya think?
(It’s quite cold here, by the way, way colder than normal.)
That’s how you now global warming is working.
Yes and “the government” has already purchased the vaccine supply “for every child between 5 and 11 years old in the country” – the Pretender. So Pharma has already made their money. But that’s not good enough. “Government” unilaterally compelling public treasure to pay private corp for unnecessary and dangerous product with public treasure holding all liability for product damages and public john and jane being forced to consume that product and now forced to put that product into their children under threat of force from that same “government”, while actual damages are obfuscated by the media and government and… Read more »
Whatever that name is, it’s not monarchy.
Attempting to force the Jab on kids will simply compel more parents to private or home school.
It’s an odd backhanded blessing.
The cure for entertainment is more entertainment. To paraphrase Frank Zappa, the entertainment will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the entertainment. I think we’ve been at that point for several years.
To reference a popular entertainment, Maximus has awakened and, turning to the crowd, asks “Are you not entertained?” We Deplorables are despised precisely because we will not give the mob what it expects. They cannot be won over or jollied into amusement. It’s time to exit stage left and begin a life outside the Colosseum. Let them choke on their bread and circuses.
Zman, Neal Postman perfectly predicted and described “The Show” in his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” He described the reality of clownworld, balanced between Orwell and Huxley: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared… Read more »
Well, at least things worked out for John, the savage from “Brave New World”.
You cote a great diagnosis 3g. And the solution rests between the extremes posited by Orwell and Huxley, Aristotelian moderation as the basis for a virtue ethics. St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval philosopher and theologian, was the master expositor of the Aristotelian virtues. And we don’t need the permission or direction of either Big Brother or Mustafa Mond to practice them in our lives.
The most hated man is the guy with no use for pot in a roomful of stoners.
Neil Postman (RIP) was a prophet. Wrote about how it was initially thought the TV would change the world…free education for the masses, world wide. Instead we got, well, schlock.
He didn’t live to see the internet, which is much, much worse.
Also many prescient thoughts in his book “The Disappearance of Childhood.”
My dad was a big fan of Neil Postman, so consequently we didn’t have a TV, at least til my late teen years. I didn’t own one until recently, and rarely watch. There are some good shows and movies, to be sure, but I mostly find the various choices on the screen to be irritating. The main thing I’ve noticed is that I can’t relate to very many people anymore because I just don’t watch very much, and most people can only talk about things they’ve seen on the tube.
It’s not a coincidence that entertainment, politics, and pop culture have degraded as the white population has shrunk, either. Something they say might seem senseless, to you. But you’re probably not their audience as a white male, particularly middle aged or older. For an African, a policy of “whitey, gibs me dat” is an acceptable level of complexity. Very popular in Zimbabwe and South Africa. For them, it’s intelligent, sensible, and suits just fine. “Muh dick (I was horny)” is an acceptable explanation for rape. I noticed that a few years ago the CBC changed their writing style. They now… Read more »
The stuff they play on the radio is so bad now I have begun listening to genres of music I never cared for like classical and older country music. But as you say, whites are no longer a majority in the under 21 crowd. The music is not meant for a white sensibility and it is only going to get worse.
If it ain’t Buck, Patsy, Johnny, or Willie, it ain’t real country.
(Buck Owens, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson)
Buck, Merle, the Bakersfield sound. Hell yeah! And damned if we ain’t in a Ring of Fire. The man in black was a veritable prophet.
Not much of a country fan, but I do love Dwight Yoakam.
Lately I’ve been listening to Hank Williams, John Denver and The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, WIllie Nelson and Waylan Jennings), who, btw, are all proto SJWs..
Rick Beato has a good YouTube channel where he breaks down rock and pop songs. The short synopsis is that music from the 60s-90s was quite complex. Even silly pop ballads like “Never Gonna Let You Go” had complex key changes. But popular music today all sounds the same, because it is written by committees of writers using simple chord and key changes, as they are just trying to commercialize to the masses, and not create art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks4c_A0Ach8
Beato is pretty interesting, but he tends to miss one of the more obvious changes in modern pop and rock, and that’s the shift in roles for rhythm and lead guitarists. Essentially, chord progressions are simpler because rhythm guitarists are anchoring the song, but lead guitarists add all the complexity. The lead work on, say, early Beach Boys’ albums seems childish compared to the lead work on, say, My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade. Anyhow, it’s mostly an apples to oranges comparison.
The stuff produced today scarcely qualifies as music. Outside of shit, I’m not sure what I’d call it.
“It’s not a coincidence that entertainment, politics, and pop culture have degraded as the white population has shrunk, either.” You see this all throughout the entertainment landscape these days. Song lyrics are simple and usually written by a ghost writer for mass consumption; they were much more intricate a few decades ago. Songs have also gotten louder over time and lack the cadence of previous generations. Meanwhile, Hollywood movies are all trend chasing, unoriginal copy cats and remakes. Everything is childish superhero man-baby nonsense packed with unconvincing villains, inappropriate humor, and nonsensical plots slapped together by mediocre directors who, despite… Read more »
Therefore BB, collect and protect your own personal media warehouse of CD, DVD’s, real books, real art. For your own enjoyment and in order to help rebuild civilization someday.
The upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff is already a dead xirl walking.
They flashed a Looming Black Male with blond braids in the trailer. Here we go.
*****
(I say GoT, the most popular television show worldwide, was a hit because it was 99.9% White.
Everybody wants to see what the Elves are up to. How “They” must seethe.)
Giving your characters traits like “blue eyes” and “blond hair” used to be a subtle means of denoting their race without directly stating it — as doing so has been seen as somewhat uncouth in American polite society for decades. But nowadays our people are so hated that other groups just blatantly ignore that convention and give the obviously Caucasian role over to one of their own demographics. If I said, “the movie takes place in ancient China and stars a dark haired girl”, no one would then cast an Irish woman and put her in a black wig.
Masterpiece Theater presents “Ow, My Balls”.
And the Oscar for Best Film goes to “Ass.”
Idiocracy is the gift that just keeps giving.
I’m holding out for PBS hosting “Monday Night Re-huh-bil-a-tayshun” with Beef Supreme
Idiocracy is the future.
The future is now.
Bro country
Gay superman
Let’s go Brandon
Adinfinitum.
Sweet sweet death.
Small Dead Animals (a Canadian blog):
Come soon, Sweet Meteor of Death!
Praying in the spirit of Saint Andreas
Black Batman (comics) Gay Robin (comics) Gay Superman (comics) Gay Starlord (comics) Gay Iceman (comics) Gay Wolverine & Cyclopes*, X-Men (comics) POC Wonder Woman (comics) POC Captain America (comics, streaming) Black female Iron Man replacement (comics) Female, feminist Thor (comics) Black Little Mermaid** (Movie) Black Tinkerbell (Movie) Black, gay Fairy Godmother (Movie) Black Lost In Space (streaming) Black Foundation (streaming) Black Gunslinger, SK’s Dark Tower (movie) Black Star Trek (streaming) Female Ghostbusters (movie) Lesbian Seven of Nine, Star Trek (streaming) Gay Data, Star Trek (streaming) Gay Picard, Star Trek (streaming) Gay Sulu, Star Trek (movie) Gay Harley Quinn*** (comics) Female… Read more »
As Tolkein observed::
“What can men do against such reckless hate?”
As mean IQ declines precipitously, the culture also retards. If you have children, or when you have children, educate them at home. While the overlords want it to be Year Zero, they also want a warm place to go to the bathroom. And even TPTB are growing significantly dumber. This has been going on for a long time, too. My great-grandfather’s public elementary school textbooks included Greek and Roman classics. We are talking about the rural South at the start of the 20th Century. Fast forward more than a century, and your average grad student cannot find Greece or Italy… Read more »
The worst part is that Music and speech production are linked into the development of Broca’s area in the brain. Failure to properly utilize this area as a child will permanently restrict any ability to appreciate or generate either to any complexity for the rest of their life. Both music and language from earlier eras will effectively be incomprehensible to those people as they mature and will fade out of the culture like a dead language. Letting your kids train their neural framework on the current vomit will permanently brain damage them in a physical manner for the rest of… Read more »
[…] ZMan jerks back the curtain. […]
Semi-OT:
Folks concerned about online privacy should know that the Brave Browser folks have rolled out Brave Search, which is the default search engine in Brave Browser.
It appears you can set Brave Search as the default in other browsers.
Every little bit you can do to get outside the existing web helps.
Yandex is good for finding forbidden topics.
Youtube has utterly destroyed the search functionality. Not just for political topics either. But, it is especially bad for news. When there is a storm somewhere, there will be a bunch of live-streams from the area where the storm is and they were very easy to find, basically just search for the name of the storm and then change the view to most recent. Now it only brings up globohomo media no matter the view. Forbidden words bring up nothing, even on google.
> What this suggests is that outsiders have two choices. One is to put on the grease paint and get out there and please the crowd.
Nick Fuentes does this, he even creates audience participation by making a brand and style his fans can follow. TRS tried it but it turns out no one wants to tuck polo shirts into khakis and go to “pool parties” with men in their 40’s. Back to Nick, he’s an entertainer and a political leader yet still serious when it counts. Kudos to the little guy.
I wish that the political entertainers showed the same self-awareness that Billy Joel displayed in his song, The Entertainer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_VHFyaSXQw
One might also wish Billy Joel had the same self-awareness now that he had back when he wrote that…
What do you mean? I think ol BJ handles himself pretty well for an ancient pop star. I’ve always given him extra credit for having done something, I’m not sure what, to piss off the media and getting all the undeserved critical disfavor.
He is a Tribal that got famous from passing himself off as a NYC Italian. Isn’t the first, won’t be the last. Not taking away from his music or talent but it is surprising how many people think this guy is a goombah from the Old Country when he is in fact the son of a -literal- merchant that fled Germany because… reasons.
Lost all interest in BJ after this:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/billy-joel-says-he-wore-star-of-david-at-concert-after-enraged-by-trump/
Nothing like a Multimillionaire imaginary holocaust victim.
We are sitting on the precipice of many serious crises that will likely strike at the same time. The coming energy shortage this winter will be a warm up for the geo-political crisis with China over Taiwan which would spur a major financial crisis over our debt/currency and our supply of goods coming from Asia. I think it would be helpful if we had a better understanding of how to prepare ourselves. ZMan, please lead the way. PS: As an aside, the unofficial foreign policy doctrine of the US has been to prevent a Eurasian hegemon who could threaten the… Read more »
Not to post PM cringe, but…
I’ve started thinking of purchases in terms of how many silver rounds I can buy for the price of the good. This merino long underwear costs three big silver rounds? Nah…
Then I put the money toward my next silver purchase. I seem to have an innate feel for the value of silver and these days it’s on a STEEP discount. Or maybe everything is just really expensive.
No cringe.
Silver looks like it’s bouncing off significant support in the low $22 range, but it’s still quite cheap at $24/oz.
Folks know that I am extreme crypto skeptic, yet I am still taking low-cost steps to accumulate some altcoins to hold or possibly lever up via trading.
At the end of the day, they’re all just tools.
Well, I’m moving south and becoming what some may term as a “carpet bagger” but I’ll refer to myself as a “reinforcement.” I’ll also be making certain durable good purchases and looking for new friends in my new town. Hope I run into like minded people.
Yak-15: Zman has his role (I hesitate to label it a niche, because he isn’t digging into a trench like so many others who pontificate about the same thing year after year, and seems willing to consider alternate viewpoints) and prepper is not one of them. That said, I think many of us here recognize that hard times are coming, even though we cannot reliably predict precisely what or precisely when. I’ve mentioned before that my local electrician has been overwhelmed with both general work and orders for whole-house generators (back ordered 6-12 months) here in DFW. We just purchased… Read more »
Generators – I wonder if steam generators are really the way to go now. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have any generator than none but there’s something appealing about an engine that can run on almost anything that will burn. Stirling engines are even better, all you need is a temperature difference. You can buy these little toy models that will run from the heat of your hand. It’s just that I keep thinking that it might not be too long before we have more stuff to burn than we do to use for its supposed purpose. Think of… Read more »
Ask yourself whether a generator is really a viable solution in the medium to long term. Gov. HairGel in Cali just signed a bill to prohibit future sales of devices run on small (25 HP) combustion engines. Existing inventory will probably sell for ruinous premiums, but eventually the drive to save polar bears will lead to restrictions on pre-existing devices. One quick “solution” TPTB could employ is to outlaw retail sale of fuel in portable containers. Nobody’s gonna bring their chainsaw to the pump every time it needs a pint of gas. If the bugmen need trees trimmed, the state… Read more »
Maus: The first response is, obviously, no one sane should relocate to or remain in California. So far as I know, there are no such restrictions currently in place in Texas, nor in the state where we’ve bought land. Long term, any fuel will ultimately degrade and/or run out (propane lasts a lot longer than regular or diesel gas and remains stable at higher temperatures as well). Solar panels also degrade and when/if various fuels become unavailable, so too will the necessary connections and batteries for solar power generation – at least for individual consumers who don’t want to live… Read more »
Soap, booze, bleach and pine oil. Enough to share with neighbors. Doesn’t hurt to be popular.
The Chinese own the heavy metals market (thank you, Feinstein’s husband), so repossessing Taiwan’s chipmaking makes perfect sense.
They’ve found an essential bottleneck to counter the monetary bottleneck of the Rothschild banks, Jamie Diamonds, and Larry Finks.
Take that, Sidney Rittenhouse!
The Yellow Dragon rises above the Red Shields of the Black Rock!
Something like 80% of world magnesium production is from China.
They’re talking about shortages.
Magnesium has myriad industrial uses.
It is also a key in common aluminum alloys like 6061 and 7005 that are used everywhere.
That is probably one of the most important realisations I have read in a while. Essentially China would have a stranglehold on what 85% of the total world chip production for the foreseeable future. It also shields them significantly from using money as leverage to take over the country. Unlike Fiat you can’t just print it up or rehypothecate the goods. In order to build new fab plants would take a few years on any decent scale (assuming it could even be done now given the diversity quotas that would be involved). The west would end up regressing to 1970s… Read more »
Something crazy going on with the Long beach shipping containers, that’s for sure.
Your guess is as good as mine. The “no truckers” excuse looking increasingly lame.
I live near the railroad tracks in Los Angeles county that carries the intermodal freight from Long Beach harbor. Ever since the lockdown started last year and continuing to this day – the amount of intermodal freight traffic has declined by 70% or so. Normally I’d hear a freight train going East bound every 90-120 minutes 7 days a week. Now it’s probably once every 3-4 hours. BTW they are no longer unloading containers at Long Beach on the weekends. This shortage is artificial – Someone is either trying to f**k with China or seriously trying to economically collapse the… Read more »
I know that a big donor to Goldberg is Cliff Asness, a hedge fund billionaire. Asness is a very public guy and loves talking about politics. He’s also a classic Libertarian, sort of right Jew, i.e. Conservative Inc. makes a lot of sense to him. Throwing a few million to Goldberg and others doesn’t mean a thing to Asness. And with it, he buys the ability to interact with them on Twitter and other social media. He’s in the game politically or so he thinks. Don’t get me wrong, Asness also gives plenty of money to real political organizations. He’s… Read more »
Goldberg is the “Asness Chair in Applied Liberty”. Does that not mean anything to you, pleb? Look at that title. How does that title not make you want to grovel in the face of your intellectual superior? Truly this incredible credential shows he is one of the top intellectuals in Applied Liberty.
Does Goldberg have a license plate the reads “Ass Man”?
He would if he were honest.
Haha…
So that’s a No then.
Kosmo Goldberg, the Ass Man.
I think that members of the Tribe are very big fans of Libertarianism for thee and tribalism/working together as a team for us.
What the fuck does “Applied Liberty” even mean?
How much of those political donations are a tax dodge or money laundering like the the arts market?
The whole idea of an income tax has ruined money and funded a criminal political class. The noxious concept was to put a nation on the hook for the king’s war loans, since he might default.
Instead of having a small window with a person using sign language for the hard of hearing, team Biden should have a man juggling in that window. They could also have a sword swallower in another window.
Now that is funny! So what would be next? Bearded ladies and Siamese twins?
You already have one of those in the Cabinet.
As Biden walks to the podium, this tune should be playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pct1uEhAqBQ
Hail To The Thief
NateG: Perhaps Harry Windsor Markle is available.
Re: constant entertainment My youngest child likes to watch YouTubers who do “reaction” videos to viral videos, memes, songs, celebrity photos, or other YouTubers. I do regulate what my child watches up to a point, but they are at that threshold of “teenage” years where you have to kind of let them become their own person without overdoing the control. I also believe that a certain limited amount of exposure to the mainstream cultural milieu is important so that our children fit in well enough to not be an outcast. Some would disagree with me on that but I’m not… Read more »
What i’ve noticed most that concerns me is the short attention span. My kids will show me tik tock vids. They rapidly flip thru them failing to finish many 15 second videos. Even with the radio, the channels are constantly changed. Frenetic. They become visible agitated watching me text or type because i am slow. The only antidote i’ve found for my youngest daughter is fishing. Surprisingly, she is a patient and tenacious fisherman.
Back when I played online games with teams someone asked a kid on the team if he was Youtuber and he said “no, but” and then went on for like a minute doing a parody of the “almost over the top” voiceover that seemingly all Youtube videos have. So even like six years ago it was so rote as to be “desperately boring”. I’ve even seen homesteader video channels that have adopted that irritating parlance.
Maybe K. Harris will be our first Youtube president and relate everything using the same poise (“hEy EvErYoNe, WeLcOmE tO tHe WhItEhOuSe! ReMeMbEr To LiKe…”).
Reaction videos really point at how much of a simulacrum we live in. Rather than authentically interacting with material, people have to have their reactions modeled for them by a filmed, original observer. It is absolutely sick brainwashing. Any depth of the original material (perhaps a deep song) is replaced with the gross superficiality of reactions: by their nature, they are immediate and surface. Hate to side with the Marxists (hey – they do get a lot right about what is wrong), but Frederic Jameson’s breakdown of the postmodern condition is dead on – and that is from the 80s.… Read more »
I suspect sitting down on a chair backwards and telling your kid you want to “rap” with him about how “tubular” and “gnarly” those Mister Beast videos are would quickly disabuse him of said degenerate interests.
I let my kid take just enough poison so he will fit in with all the other poisoned dying kids in his peer group.
Its not like I am hardwiring his brain for pathways to consume this shit for ever when he is older.
I said I’m not going to debate anyone on the issue. Nonsense snarkiness isn’t going to change my mind.
“The modern world will not be punished. It is the punishment.”
Corollary: And we are gluttons for pinishment.
Most men that fell asleep in 1980 are still asleep. Hard to blame them. Even the looming certainty of being nuked by the Ruskies before I could finish my bowl of cheerios seemed more normal than current year. The audience is sleepy and entertained to death. Does a population of intellectually sedated and culturally vacant children deserve to be shaken into adulthood? I find the trends popular with influencers and media whores that has been taken up by trad-civnat-dissident voices to be detrimental to the message. But I am weird. I dont like watching men in their cars shooting long… Read more »
Heh. Listening to other men telling you how they feel (genuine trauma excepted) is a tedious exercise. One thing that I note is that the ‘issues’ are all so trivial. So unimportant.
That said, the word at the workplace is that we’ll be having ‘focus groups’ so that we can all tell each other “How we feel”.
NPC: “Tell me, Mr. Frog: How do you feel?”
Me: “There’s too many non-whites in England… and that guy in the news does have lips like Michelin tires.”
Reminds me of when my co-worker went to see his boss about a pay raise since he was an elite level ASIC programmer being paid a mid-level wage. The boss asked “And how does that make you feel?” and waffled, saying he wasn’t sure about the budget.
He made it clear how he felt be taking job interviews with other companies before the boss panicked and gave him a proper salary.
Feelings talk among anyone but your closest and most trusted friends is simply psychological warfare to try to manipulate you.
There’s that say that goes something like ‘Intelligent people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and stupid people talk about other people.’ Talking about “feelings” is the equivalent of the third. It’s the rare unicorn IRL that wants to talk about actual ideas.
“Serious people know that the best you can do sometimes is play a bad hand so you can play the next hand.”
If my printer hadn’t stopped working as soon as the warranty expired this would be framed and hanging on my wall.
The Demon in Democracy is a good book.
What struck me most was his account of how easy it was for the communist bureaucrats to fit right into the EU liberal Democratic bureaucracy and just keep going.
This brought home the similarities in the bureaucracies in communism and liberal democracies.
Almost like its the same people in a different outfit?
Even Reagan commented that communism was a giant loathsome bureaucracy. Of course I think it was much more than that but as you have noticed dialing it down a bit and you can fit it in any progressive political system.
It’s a way of waging war, using the power of the pen and the back up of existing (latent) force against the populace, by an emergent constituency that becomes its own nation within a nation. Perhaps, in theory, competing bureaucratic factions could keep themselves in check, but in practice, they form a monolithic class that lives off the productive populace. Pseudo-proletariat revolutions have always been thus. Ours simply happened via an electoral process.
Yes, I am halfway thru Demon in Democracy. It is excellent. The West now takes it as fact that liberal democracy is the greatest system and that the answer to our failures is always more democracy. Legutko puts our plight in great perspective. So far, its the best political science book I’ve ever read.
That’s what Ned Beatty was getting at in his, “Forces of Nature,” monologue in Network.
T.S. Elliot was right:
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
The corollary:
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle” by G. Orwell rings true.
I often advocate “killing your TV” because it is a necessary first step on the road to clarity. Exposing yourself to carny entertainment is the metaphorical equivalent of rubbing feces into your eyes & ears. It stinks, makes everything fuzzy, and will eventually make you very sick. Think of it as taking a daily shower in venereal disease and intentionally growing puss-filled chancres on your body. Yes, it really is that bad. But Normie is addicted to this form of debasement, and it will not change until a collapse brings about a severe latte shortage. And so it’s best to… Read more »
I am 68 and have not watched tv for 43 years. When on occasion I happen to be in a room where the damned thing is on, it startles. Violent pornography like “Game of Thrones” seems to be the norm. The rest is worthless trash showing a bunch of millennials shouting clever insults at each other.
Heh, they play daytime TV in the cafeteria at my firm.
You can hear more intelligent shrieking at the chimp cage in the local zoo.
Say what you will about the different generations but Millennials have mastered the snark. Maybe as cope or defense mechanism.
We’ve gone from entertainment being something that takes some effort to acquire, to it being so ubiquitous you can only get away from it by implementing the most extreme measures. TV opened the floodgates, but the waters have swelled past it’s influence at this point. For instance even the gas pump wants to give me the “news” from the NBA.
Those gas pump TVs are there because too many men still have not evolved to carry their phones in their hands 24/7. Most women and nearly all young women have only one hand now, the other being a permanent phone holder. Observing them in the wild reveals the constant thumb-stroking. Modern day self-soothing. Conversations carry on but the eyes rarely migrate from the screen and the topics of such spring from their phones like so many shooting stars while the light inside slowly dies. Sharing with others means look at this content on my phone. Alone, however, is particularly disturbing… Read more »
Please don’t stop writing. There’s a novel here, and a good one at that. Let me add that 50 Shades of Gray has taught modern women that there is billionaire on every corner waiting to ravage them, and all they have to do is squeeze their fat ass into $300 skintight yoga pants and they’re set for life.
I do most of my hiking and trail running as a dawn partrol to avoid the inevitable females. The solo female has her phone in her face either on a call or listening to some podcast. The paired females are always talking, talking talking. No blessed silence.
I have a group of ladies that walk in my subdivision several times per week, and they talk for the entire 45 minutes of their walk. Then they stop in front of one of their houses and keep talking. Like they cannot get out everything they want to say in 45 minutes. I think men use the Ernest Hemingway style, that the fewer words used to convey a thought or joke, the more interesting it is to hear.
Or they dutifully have their face panties strapped on, especially the white Karen future cat ladies.
Man I hope people get to read archives and comments of this blog generations from now..
TomA: As you well know, I totally agree re tv. I’ve strongly considered buying the tv zapper (https://www.tvbgone.com/) to use at the gym, but I don’t have the stomach for the repercussions. I have surprised myself, though, by starting to watch (and enjoy) quite a number of youtube videos about homesteading and home building. Learned a ton and made lots of bookmarks and choices that will be useful for building, if we can even get any of the necessary supplies, over the next few years. I’ve discovered a rather eclectic mix of primarily 20s-40s White people living in an independent… Read more »
Small, independent lumber mills (really timber mills) are starting to reopen in rural areas and can be good source for you homebuilding needs. I know a 30s husband & wife team that run one by themselves and are so busy they would hire employees if they could find any (they have two 14 year old nephews running loaders when not in school). Hope springs eternal.
TomA: We will obviously need some lumber, but I pretty much have my heart set on an ICF home – concrete costs haven’t risen nearly as much as everything else, and such a home is a lot more fireproof, far better insulated, and a lot more secure than stick-built home.
Anything we need, though, we will try to purchase locally if at all possible. We want to support the White, rural community we hope to be a part of.
3g I have the zapper! Its the best “tech” I have acquired since my atari 2600. I gave a few out last Christmas to my badthink friends. Best stocking-stuffer ever. At the GloboGym, when I chain myself to the infinity stairs to pay the fiddler for my habit of ales and fried chicken, I will take it out and shut down 4-5 of the 30 TV’s dangling from the grid while I ascend to nowhere with my badthoughts. When I blank two at a time I have to suppress my glee by upping to level 9. The gaggle of doughy… Read more »
Screwtape: Smart that you don’t use it every time. Don’t you have to hold and aim it at the tv though? I don’t know that I could do it without being seen. It’s mainly the sportsball and diversity ads that irritate me when I’m doing cardio; I face the mirrors and no tv when lifting. If my husband and I were 20 years younger and had any rural experience at all, we might try homesteading. At our age we will have to pay to have our house built but do plan to try to garden in some raised beds and… Read more »
What is your opinion of Victor Davis Hanson?
I’m so old that I remember when VDH was a lefty, and he used his ample brain power defending Progressive ideals. So my question to you is . . . was he red-pilled or is this just his newest act?
He has a family farm in California. He has noticed the benefits of diversity but it is hard to tell how red pilled he has become. I find him personable and likeable. His expertise in the history of the classical period also lends him a more expansive view than the average normie con grifter.
I think he was gradually red-pilled. He seems genuine and thoughtful. He recently left National Review, which also speaks to his seriousness.
Hanson is a neocon, he ran interference for team Cheney/Rumsfeld.
I have not read Hanson all that much, so I can’t offer an opinion. I do find it interesting that he pretty much said the same things Derb said in his infamous Taki post, but never suffered for it. Here is the Derb post and a year later here is the Hanson post.
I just remember the late Lawrence Auster used to criticize him a lot.
I’ve read almost all of Hanson’s books. Concerning War and Ancient History he is quite good. His weekly essays not so much. He goes right to the wall but then steps back and writes some boilerplate gibberish to avoid the taint of “racism”.
His opportunism left him stranded.
He let his pen serve the interests of the Deceivers.
Auster is a voice, in my opinion, sorely missed. Might dig through his archive tonight, actually.
Larry A is one of the reasons I am here today. I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. He was an irrascible Ashkenazi, though a Catholic convert, but he was an invaluable bridge for me. Lord, how he used to berate Derb. Bless that unpleasant man. (David Horawitz said that Larry caused him more troubles than all of his other writers combined.) (Shameless gossip: A lady blogger named “Thinking Housewife” was a Larry promoter and would ban any posts that questioned the chosen. When Larry was dying, she took care of him. After his death, she was surprising… Read more »
Auster and Gottfried are why I can never be an anti-Semite. Very few people seek the truth and do so with the knowledge that they will never attain it. It is a small club.
Laura – she became a sedevacantist Catholic and, yes, became more open to criticism of them and more into what’s commonly called conspiracy theories. Not a criticism of her – she’s a real nice lady. A genuinely feminine and genuinely right-wing woman. Wish we had a million of her.
Larry was an Episcopal but converted just prior to his death, through the Personal Ordinariate.
Genuine antisemites don’t trust ANY Jewish person and will tell you e.g. Auster and Gottfried are on “our side” just to undermine our efforts. I’ve corresponded briefly with Dr. Gottfried and he seemed like a decent fellow. I made his wife Mary (RIP I believe) laugh with one of my jokes.
One of the jokes in the whiteright used to be that goy Jared Taylor has a very Jewish name while Jewish right-wingers Lawrence Matthew Auster and Paul Edward Gottfried have very Anglo-Christian names.
For anyone who’s interested in reading Auster, there’s a book published a year or two ago, called “Our Borders, Ourselves” (or something like that) that’s very much worth reading. I think about him occasionally and would love to hear his thoughts about today’s mess.
VDH is basically a liberal that has been mugged. He actually worked reasonably hard as a kid and has had to managed a vineyard, i.e. he has some contact with the real world. Well, his area of California is now overrun with Hispanics and VDH has kind of noticed how crappy it has become. VDH is also noticing how multiple races in the same area doesn’t exactly make for harmony. Basically, the real world keep punching VDH in the face so he can’t help but notice his liberal and then colorblind CivNat views don’t seem to fit that reality. However,… Read more »
A feature of California civic nationalists of all stripes is a deep nostalgia for the California of their youth. Mickey Kaus and Steve Sailer are two other examples. They came up in a time when the California schools were first rate and you could got to a solid state college for nothing as long as you made the grade. Post-war California was peak America until the blight of the cultural revolution sunk in after the 60’s. There was a revival in the 80’s but it was swamped by mass invasion from Mexico. I think a lot of what motivates the… Read more »
Agreed. I’d add that acknowledging that those days are gone for good also means trying to figure out what to do now, which, in turn, means acknowledging a lot of dark truths. Looking back wistfully allows them to the not look forward. VDH’s problem is that the future stares him in the face every time he leaves his house. From my understanding of his neighborhood’s demographics, Sailer can still pretend that the past still exists on those rare occasions when he leaves his house. I hate to bring in the overused Boomer meme, but VDH and Sailer seem to be… Read more »
This is why I have broke with much of what was once called the HBD crowd. They are possessed with the belief that one day the people in charge will wake up and realize they were right all along. Then the poles will reverse and all resources will be marshaled to restore the lost America of their youth. I no longer think it is possible for the people in charge to change their views. Even if by some miracle they have a mass awakening, the die is cast. Even if that was not true, going back to some point in… Read more »
On the occasions that I post at Sailer, I often quip that “we’re not voting – or debating – our way out of this.” No one seems to get joke. I’ve said for years that Sailer’s blog seems like an appeal to David Brooks to figure out that the direction his friends are setting for the country isn’t going to be good for his people or ours. But what Sailer doesn’t seem to get is that Brooks and his generation is no longer in charge. They couldn’t change our path even if they suddenly decided that Sailer was right. Sailer… Read more »
Citizen: “Cowardice cloaked in statistics.” Brilliant and I’m stealing it. God how on point. Yet challenge their damned numbers with numerous anecdotes from numerous sources and you are dismissed as having neither data nor evidence. And challenge the legitimacy of the official numbers in their pet area and you are a conspiracy theorist.
Z: “I no longer think it is possible for the people in charge to change their views.” Actually our leaders are very aware of HBD and racial differences. Just look at how they live. But flooding the country has been too good for them politically, and they don’t know when to quit. To prove my point, imagine if illegals voted 60-40 Republican. The wall would be visible from space, and lefties would be talking about brown people taking white people’s jobs. Not that this observation matters, as the results are the same either way. But they know the truth, and… Read more »
20th century California was peak civilization for normal people. VDH, Sailer, et al., will never stop believing that the class of people who destroyed that civilization is *better* than normal people. Everything they get wrong is an echo of that one unbearable dissonance.
It’s a helluva thing to watch the land of your youth die. Paradise forever lost. VDH knows it. All of us White native Californians of a certain age know it. In the end. ….
“It don’t mean shit.” – Mr. Natural
The California Dreamin is an affliction shared by many of my California friends. Even the badthinkers. I can relate having spent my salad years there catching waves and whatnot. What frustrates me is how they can be trapped in the amber of those glory days but simultaneously fail to account for the conditions precedent of such glory. The crudest example being 15 million fewer foreigners. I get wanting to go back, that’s a simple but formidable wave of nostalgia that curls into time before eventually crashing on the sands of reality. It can be overcome because its fairly easy to… Read more »
you have no idea how good it was back then. “The Wonder Years” does a pretty good job of recalling that era.
On rare occasions (when it’s safe to do so) I’ve pulled out the Dissident positions on some Conservative / moderately awake Gen Xers / Boomers. They never disagree. In fact they agree with just about everything I say on demographics, race, diversity, etc. After that they just say “well, what can you do” and then forget about it. They know I’m right, but they can’t bring themselves to think about next steps. We can keep preaching the message but really we have to lead the way for others who don’t have the vision or courage to consider it. I would… Read more »
That’s the bad part (and I’ve seen it several times myself): you give them a toddler’s size serving of a red pill and they turn around and choke down a container of blue pills to wash the taste out. And those are people who are nominally on our side.
“After that they just say “well, what can you do” and then forget about it. They know I’m right, but they can’t bring themselves to think about next steps.”
I call it the “Shrug.” They just shrug and move on.
“Going back to the Rip Van Winkle at the start of this post, he would be baffled by how people identify themselves by the types of entertainment they consume. Putting your sports teams in your social media profile would seem bizarre to a man from the 1980’s.”
It wouldn’t have surprised anyone who went to “The” OSU — even back in the ’80s people decorated their cars and homes to show they were Buckeye fans. Once they saw social media, they’d go, “Oh, yeah, of course the first thing you’d do would be to put up a Buckeye logo.”
I agree, if anything sports fandom was more prominent and sincere back then. Now many people follow sports just for gambling purposes.
As sports teams have become more mercenary, it’s no coincidence its fans followed.
Seinfeld said we were rooting for laundry back in the ’90s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-L7w1K5Zo
He’s not wrong…
One [I can adduce many more] reason most of us here along the banks of La Belle Riviere despise those very accurately, self-styled, “Buck nuts.” The true believer in the sports arena are the most insufferable of all
In a different timeline, Z is talking to his couch and cracking jokes about the time he met his favorite adult entertainment starlet. That’s an even worse timeline than the one we live in.
But I think all the Q stuff was dissident politics in clown makeup. That is, any dissident politics in clown makeup would have to look like Q and be a version of the con game Conservative, Inc. runs.
One could argue American politics has been an ongoing form of entertainment for decades. Only America could have former actors as State Governors (Jesse Ventura & Arnold Schwarzenegger) and another for President (Ronald Reagan). Entertainment is in your county’s political DNA. And Trump being Trump, he really took it to the next level. Nothing against him personally. I thought he did a good job despite the uphill battle from the liberal press and party back-stabbers. But be let’s honest, the man knows entertainment. To be fair, Europe has had its little side shows now and then. Silvio Berlusconi was my… Read more »
I’ve often said that the Clinton election in 1992 was the inflection point. Everything seemed to change around that time. Public affairs shows went from staid discussion to competitive lying and shouting. The media abandoned all pretense of fairness. The thought public intellectual was replaced with the snarky clown.
When in Europe, I will tune into public affairs shows and the difference is stark. The exception is Britain, where the BBC and SkyNews are even more ridiculous than American cable news.
Yep. Clinton was a turning point. Sure, Reagan had the Hollywood background and understood imaging, but he didn’t join the crowd.
Clinton went on talk shows. Played the sax. Talked about his underwear. There was an interactive element to Clinton. He wasn’t just giving a speech, he was interacting with the audience.
Bush II sort of returned to the old ways, but Obama was in the Clinton mold and added social media to the game. Trump was the same, just better at it. Other politicians followed Clinton’s lead. Politics as we new it was over after Clinton.
I can still remember the constant, insufferable, “Rock the Vote,” ad campaign on MTV leading into that ’92 election, and the constant, insufferable post-election babbling on MTV about how, “Rock the Vote,” got the youth to the ballot box and Slick Willie into the White House.
I’m fairly convinced Clinton playing that sax while wearing sunglasses (and wasn’t it on SNL?) is what got him elected. US politics has been ridiculous for way longer than people are willing to admit.
Nothing new under the sun. See “All The King’s Men” from 1949.
Arsenio Hall iirc. First black president!
In the UK ,for some reason, the “serious” political discussion occurs on the radio. If you listen to BBC radio 4 in the morning (before 9)you will hear ministers and various other goons facing a traditional interview.
No. You will hear the usual globohomo propaganda wrapped in a serious voice.
Jeez learn to recognize when shit is being shoveled into your ears, irrespective as the pronunciation.
I noticed it as a kid. Went from GI Joe and riding in the bed of the pickup to Barney and car seats practically overnight. Luckily, I was barely old enough to have aged out.
I don’t think the element of the carnival is anything new to American politics. When one reads of the various exploits of our venerated congress-critters, Davey Crockett, for example, Ol’ Hickory, or Rep. Preston Brooks nearly caning sen. Charles Sumner to death in the floor of Congress, welp, you gotta up your act to top that.
Henry Clay was not afraid to display his hardware during speechs. Patrick Henry was also said to be quite the dramatic orator. Of course there was also the duels and public hangings. The good old days…
Additionally, no one seems to be aware of the fact that Preston Smith Brooks fell to the Wuhan flu.
Farage’s post-Brexit performance at the EU was one of the best political moments of my lifetime. In the end it amounted to very little but as a spectacle it was fantastic.
German politics maybe dry but it,unsurprisingly, has a morose stupidity about it. One thinks of the constant calls for European solidarity when dealing with the Greeks and French. I always laugh. A good example of morose Gerrman comedy was decision to curtail German nuclear power generation after Fukishima showed how vulnerable Germany was to Tsunamis!In fact the whole “energy miracle” is pompously inane. I’ll also never forget that Germany violated the terms of the Growth and Stability pact within the first second it was implemented even though the Germans created it to hurt the “feckless”Latins and Greeks. German politics is… Read more »
The linked Ned Ryan piece made an excellent point: when leftwing billionaires donate, they are deadly serious about it. If Soros donates a million to a distrust attorney candidate, that person had better win or make a strong effort to do so. No grease paint is required, only results. Contrast with the expectations from GOP donors. In the entertainment realm, Con. Inc., has been a grift sine the days of the benighted William. While he came from a wealthy, Upper Middle Class family, he also lived beyond his means and dependent the kindness of blue-haired heiressses. Unfortunately for Con, Inc.,… Read more »
I think a lot of the money going into a place like the Heritage Foundation has to be corporate and is being done to channel people into a dead end. That is too much money to raise from wealthy individual donors. I would really like to see a list of the people that agreed to fund The Dispatch. What do they think they are going to accomplish with something like that? That you could meet Goldberg, French and Steve Hayes and think, “this is something I should invest mid six figures in” is stunning.
“distrust attorney”
Unintentionally accurate typo of the day?
Typo of the day. I would love to be that clever.
That’s all true enough. However, the rallying cry of conservatism is essentially, “Oppose Change,” and that’s never going to attract anyone but curmudgeons and the close-minded. It’s an attitude that precludes any meaningful problem-solving and is inclined to dismiss problems not personally experienced as false or irrelevant. It may occasionally be correct in it’s analysis, but it’s never inspiring in it’s pronouncements.
The National Review fundraiser is a little misleading. The first donation they have posted is an $18,000 one from a board member. These appear to not be going as well as they did previously for them, even at $100k they are not even a third of the way to $325k goal for the end of the month. That said, reading through the comments there are still a significant number of people falling for the grift. One guy yesterday donated $1,000 and then wrote “now will you let me log into my account?” These readers don’t seem to have the ability… Read more »
National Review would love to be propped up by leftwing donors like the Bulwark and AEI are but even they see how irrelevant it is, basically a faux Right The New Republic. The cup rattling, no matter, how pathetic, is a sign Zuckerberg and Co. smell the fail.
There simply is no popular, highly viewed venue for the serious and sober minded these days. Instead we get to celebrate the Levine freak’s elevation to four star admiral. As Z said, most people either aren’t really paying attention to the degradation of the culture or perhaps will tangentially discuss it before returning to their favorite sports ball topics. There have to be some types out there who will take the bull by the horns when the time comes, but as Tom Petty opined, the waiting is the hardest part.
Adm. Levine is an invitation to check out. Take it.
Levine is a gold mine for our side. I hope every admiral from here on out is a tranny. I hope every new CIA operative is doped up on anxiety meds. I hope every new politician is a dementia riddled zombie.
Try to get anyone to pretend there is any authority in their deranged dictates. Let them do their performance in their D.C. bubble while being too incompetent and clownish to actually rule.
This tines a 1,000.The more humiliating the better. I want the Defense budget to include non-binary prenatal care on Carriers.
I’m a fairly cynical guy about politics, but that Levine appointment has been has been like having my face rubbed in shit.
The elites are daring us to complain so that they can make us unemployable.
I just don’t find Christianity compelling, but I’m starting to think that maybe there is something to that Soddom and Gomorrah stuff.
Line: As a Christian, may I suggest that the recognition and acknowledgement of the reality of evil almost requires some belief and research into the existence of spiritual good. Begin from there. And my husband would confirm that I’ve stated for years that if clownworld doesn’t crash and burn, God owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.
That’s where the historical analogies fail, and we’re in totally uncharted territory. Things like the US Civil War (soon to get Roman numeraled), WWI, and the like, were obvious, catastrophic mistakes… but for all they were pushed by deeply frivolous people, part of the explanation for such things seems to be the fools’ knowledge that they were backstopped by serious men. Your Southern fire eater could push it, knowing that whatever else happened, a man of Jeff Davis’s caliber was on his side. But now? A modern day Diogenes, searching the Western world for a serious man, will be carrying… Read more »
Unlike the rubble of the Soviet Union, ours very well could be the launching pad for the end of the world. Even allied countries apprehend the danger.
“I suggest we all start drinking heavily.”
Cheers!
“I suggest we all start drinking heavily.”
Way ahead of you on that one.
“The most hated man is the serious person in a room full of silly people looking for a good time.” That’s me on other online non politcal forums or even personal discussions even when I include my own brand of humor.
That said, we here have to get serious about the first Zman blog cruise. I think an Alaskan one would be good with an elite rate package which includes a photo with Zman and the black conservative of your choice. (There will probably only two)
Go for the gusto – see if we can’t raise enough money to get Goldberg as the guest of honor. How much would you pay to see Z Man rip into him in person? You could raise a small nation’s GDP right there.
For years I have threatened to setup outside of CPAC a booth where you can get a picture with a black guy. Conservatives pay ten bucks to get a pic of themselves with the “black conservative” looking happy. I’d make a fortune.
You would become a wealthy man. Even the dimwitted grifter Charlie Kirk knew running around with a black homosexual holding forth about the defense budget was a crowd pleaser. As an aside, after Nick Fuentes shut down Kirk’s freakshow, I caught the gay black dude in a serious, tailored suit doing analysis on Fox a few months later. I don’t know if he still does because I don’t watch brain pollution except by happenstance, but Conservative Gay Black dude on Fox channeling The Other Kirk’s, Russell, was freaking hilarious and almost could draw me back into the Borg if it… Read more »
The Fuentes Groyper posse could have had an effect on Kirk. He changed his tune on immigration and is now saying some things that our side can approve of. Of course I don’t trust that he’s sincere, but it’s something. I also notice Matt Walsh, after his run-in with the Groypers seems more in line with us on some things.
What kind of a moron would board a cruise ship now?
It’s a joke, finish your coffee.
It’s true. I had not had my coffee.
I do wonder if this is a regional thing. For a brief time that I’d spent in New England it seemed that everyone went on cruises, all the time. Conversely, when I was in Colorado it seemed that a disproportionate number of people went to Mexico on holiday, which I also don’t get. (Of course I live in the middle of nowhere 1,000 miles from Florida (literally), but that doesn’t stop the place from being inundated with Florida license plates in the summer so maybe the whole “holiday” idea escapes me).
Trip to Kenya, where we get to dig a well for a Kenyan Christian village while staying in glamorous Great White Hunter style tents. Donors at the $10,000 level will go on a lion hunt at Hemingway’s favorite hunting spot.