Note: The Monday Taki post is up. This week I take some gratuitous shots at the sperg-right over the racist AI story from last week. Behind the green door is the Sunday podcast where I gas on about the news of the week.
Michael Anton, the person responsible for the famous Flight 93 essay endorsing the great gamble on Donald Trump, has a long essay up at The New Criterion arguing that we live in unprecedented times. Those who make predictions about what comes next for the West are foolishly assuming that present patterns are the same as past patterns and therefore they will play out the same as they did in the past. He lays out why the current patterns are unique and therefore unpredictable.
Interestingly, his essay rests on this assertion: “let’s first consider the one historical parallel that all sides of this debate draw on for precedent: the rise, peak, decline, and fall of Rome.” This essay is part of a series, so it is possible the task given to the writers was to draw comparisons between the West in general or American in particular with the Roman Empire or even the Roman Republic. The entirety of Anton’s essay is comparing Rome to America.
Comparisons to Rome have been popular in America for a very long time, mostly because the American republic failed in the middle of the 19th century. This is one of those things that intelligent people have known is true but agreed not to discuss outside where the peasants can hear. A major part of the ruling class ethos has been the maintenance of the republican myth. Some on the Right will still insist that America is a republic and not a liberal democracy.
That is why comparisons to Rome have been popular. Either as a self-deception or as a way to avoid discussing reality, the worry that America could follow the Roman Republic into empire has been a staple for a long time. What makes this present age unique is that many people simply accept America as an empire. Much of the ruling class now prefers the word “democracy” over republic. When was the last time a politician said, “we must defend our republic”?
Anton takes a different approach in knocking down the comparison to Rome, mostly to focus on the great threats to the current order. The fact is though, Rome is not a great guide to understanding the present age. If you are looking for an example from the classical period, then Greece is your best option. Like America, Athens became a democratic empire that never understood itself to be an empire. In dominating its neighbors, it was sure it was liberating them from tyranny.
The other comparison between Ancient Athens and America that works well is in the totalitarian nature of its politics. The Romans put on shows to entertain the masses, but the Greeks staged shows to indoctrinate and control the people. Dionysian theater was about maintaining the prevailing moral orthodoxy. Today, mass media is about controlling the moral framework. Like the Greeks, Americans are hooked on the narcotic of endless morality tales reinforcing their beliefs about themselves.
If one wants to take this comparison back to the origin of America, you can go back to the English Civil War. That is a version of the Peloponnesian War and the American Civil War was a replay of it to birth America a second time. In both cases, it is the democratic side that prevailed over the Spartan side. That makes for a much more interesting comparison as the Athenians were lucky to have lost to the Spartans, so we may be seeing a form of alternative history with America.
If the Classical period is not your thing, then we have an empire closer to home that makes for an interesting and useful comparison. The American empire is looking similar to the Soviet empire at the end. The ossified and geriatric ruling elite is the obvious starting point in the comparison. Like the American empire, the Soviet leaders did not prepare for their departure from the scene. Instead, they purged anyone with ambition and the result was a poverty of talent and vitality at the top.
Another good parallel with the Soviets is the people in charge just assumed they represented the will of the people. The American ruling elite does not have dusty old books about political theory to justify their belief in themselves as the authentic voice of the people, but they believe it, nonetheless. Central to the identity to the managerial elite is their belief in themselves as the expression of the ideals of the system. Like the nomenklatura, the managerial class thinks things going great.
The other selling point in the comparison between the Soviet empire and the American empire is they are the product of the same dialectic. Communism proposed, fascism opposed and the synthesis was liberal democracy. Alternatively, communism and liberal democracy both assumed they were the answer to the great question of history, the solution to the struggle forward. In the end, neither was the answer to anything because history is not a solvable puzzle.
What is most interesting in Anton’s essay is what is not mentioned. For example, the Roman Empire in the last two centuries was a system run by people who had no hand in creating it. Waves of barbarian invaders had changed the complexion of the people over whom the empire ruled. The leaders also stopped being Roman in the sense that they had connections to the Roman elite. We see a similar pattern emerging in the West as immigrants flood Western lands.
There is also the fact that the Roman Republic failed when the economic arrangements supporting it failed. The influx of slave labor after the defeat of Carthage and Corinth changed the economics of the republic. We have a parallel to this age with the reliance on helot labor by Western capitalism. The economic model of fifty years ago no longer exists in the West, so it naturally follows that politics must change. Again we see the people problem as a precedent to our own age.
Of course, one can look for parallels in the rhythms of time. In the case of America, it could very well be the end of a historical epoch. The ideas of the Enlightenment have been fulling explored through Jacobinism, various forms of socialisms and communism and finally liberal democracy. Like all of those prior failures, this one is doomed to crash into the rocks of biological reality. The end point of man’s journey is not a paradise of peace and freedom, but rather the extinction of the species.
Anton’s essay is useful in that it focuses attention on the present trends that threaten civilization, but this is not an age without precedent. In fact, his premise is a bit of a strawman that allows him to avoid the central questions that lie at the heart of the current crisis in the West. It is not a crisis of historical patterns or ideology, but rather a crisis of people. Either the people of the West want to live or not. The real crisis is that there is no agreement on that answer.
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Simplistic stuff. Events do not take place in a vacuum.
We started with the decadence of Rome, are currently in the eat their own stage of France, and quickly headed into The Spanish Civil War with so many sides you couldn’t keep track…
For those who want to draw parallels (and differences) this is what I see: *Rome — unlike the late Empire in the West, we do not rely on foreigners in any real way for military power, that remains in Spec Ops, Artillery, Armor, Air Force, Marines, Intel, and pretty much every and anything directly combat related, overwhelmingly White. Support and non-essential people are mostly non-Whites. And unlike the Empire in the West, the Praetorian Guard (FBI/CIA) are fanatically loyal to a faction not a man. And unlike the Empire, the invading barbarians are very distinct by race and ethnicity and… Read more »
What, no Habsburgs or Ottomans, who both chose to self destruct in 1914 and 1915, and were finally buried in 1918?
It’s not on the scale of the USSR’s pay problems, but there have been recent reporrs of US Navy sailors having their pay delayed enough to prompt them to take out loans:
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/11/21/report-navy-pay-delays-causing-some-sailors-rely-loans/
I can’t read the Anton article as it is behind a paywall. That being said I will agree broadly that this is unprecedented. With a mixture of nearly all collapses mixed. First is the mass migration of the non White Third World into the White First World (and even the White Second). This is different, it has not happened in this mass at this level on every White society and culture on Earth. Second is the level of complexity that our society which is GLOBAL depends upon. We rely on fossil fuels to transport goods from cheap Chinese labor (no… Read more »
Funny, but it was open to the world until a few hours ago. My guess is the traffic from here caused them to pay wall it. Too funny.
Irony layered like a very large onion.
You making a lot of money for others, I hear. Bet it a bit exasperating.
You can’t take hits to the bank.
They are weak and they are afraid.
Try:
https://archive.md/2021.11.20-141908/https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/12/unprecedented
“When was the last time a politician said, “we must defend our republic”?”
That’s why we call them “Democrat” and “Republican” parties–even those neither of those appellations are descriptive.
whom would they say it to? grillers?
This unserious (former) country is so far down the rabbit hole, there’s no getting back. The only thing that seemingly matters anymore is paying fealty to various degenerate minority groups. Currently, joggers occupy the top position, but the queers, trannies, legal/illegal aliens, wamenz etc., are clamoring just below. It truly does remain to be seen if the dwindling White majority is going to wake up and save themselves – unfortunately, things as they currently stand don’t look too promising. Added to the above, covid & climate change psycho cults are two more nails in the coffin.
Its on a rotation
The Constitution has indeed proven to be a “suicide pact”…
“It is not a crisis of historical patterns or ideology, but rather a crisis of people. Either the people of the West want to live or not.” true, I’d even say it’s worse than that cause not only the people of the west face extinction, but all fair skinned high iq people share this existential dilemma. High iq Asians & russians have the same problems, not even the european muslims or the ashkenazi can shield themselves from this. Immigration is harmful at this point cause there’s no one smart out there worth bringing in, the reason tower of babel projects… Read more »
Like Rome, the United States is all but doomed. I’ve given up after the last few years. I’ve seen enough. Perhaps this is premature, but I don’t think so because I’ve come to believe the country’s problems lie mostly with its population and not with its politics; one is downstream of the other, so anything we do will always face a never ending rip tide opposing reform efforts. We simply don’t have enough good people to change things or make reform stick even if we accomplish it (1994 Crime Bill then vs “defund the police” now). Voting in a new… Read more »
Omegatron: I think you’ve misread your purported audience, dear. The conservatard grifters who love to label ‘extreme left and right’ as equal eeeviills and use the adjective ‘rayciss’ unironically can be found in scores at other websites. Besides, you wouldn’t want to be tainted by association with nyonotseees, and those ‘blue collar . . . uneducated’ types you decry are not the best choice for building your magic moderate consensus. And surely someone of your erudition belongs among your peers, rather than here with us ol’ rubes.
Think I’m wrong? Prove it. Show me the successes. I can’t count any. You’re being defensive because you know I’m right. “I think you’ve misread your purported audience, dear.” Lady, the fact that you’re responding in the negative proves I know this audience quite well. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to be tainted by association with nyonotseees” I wouldn’t. Neither do most normal people. But hey, “do something man” if it makes you feel better. “And those blue collar.” Nice strawman, linking my correct criticism of neonazism tainting the far-Right’s image with the public with my correct observation that conservatives are… Read more »
Your ignorance of American history–especially of the colonizers of this continent in the 17th century stopped my reading at that point. So spare us the teen-age style “Think I’m wrong” Prove it.” bravado. It is boring, and you are a bore. Learn some history. And learn to hold your tongue inn the presence of your betters–especially when you don’t know what you are saying.
Side Note: Half a billion dollars annually @ $20k per informant, what the FBI’s Michigan hoax ringleader was paid IIRC, comes out to around 25,000 informants on the federal payroll at any one time. The only way that’s a wild exaggeration is if the vast majority of that money is paid to the federal bureaucracy through salaries or if some of these informants are paid astronomical sums. Even at half that number — or even a fourth — we’re still talking about an enormous number of informants and an enormous number of federal agents seeking them out. Remember that when… Read more »
“American degeneracy is seen in its politics, which are now dominated by two political coalitions: the far-Left and the far-Right.” Who are the far-right that dominate? Nikki Haley? Trump? I just saw little white girls run over in a Christmas parade. Our elites are largely to blame for this in my estimation. You want to do math? Let try this, and please correct me if i am wrong. 80 million white men with guns that lean right. Let’s take the 3% most right of that cohort. Let’s half it to those that they feel they have a lot to lose… Read more »
“After all we are descended from the discontents”
The word you’re looking for is “malcontents,” but even so, your abysmal ignorance of colonial history and of those who did the colonizing is on full display. It’s 6th-grade stuff.
I mostly agree with you, but I would counter that the repulsiveness of the authoritarian right is more a flaw of the masses than of the authoritarian right. We are under invasion and every living thing that is going to survive and not be wiped out needs to have a survival instinct and the will to fight off invaders. It really bothers me we have to constantly debate how best we can defend our land and spaces in some nuanced way that won’t turn off everyone.. A people who require their defending warriors to be inoffensive aren’t going to make… Read more »
Nothing based on NSDAP thinking is really Right Wing unless you are a European or Jew. Right Wing is properly Paleo-Conservatism ,isolationist , economically nationalist , socially conservative, pro tradition and pro family . Leftism is always a fusion of corporate and state economics, expansionist , interventionist and opposed to family and tradition except as it serves the State The NSDAP thinking is state/economic fusion,. expansionist, interventionist, and opposed to tradition. Its sort of pro family and sort of economically nationalist with a socialist bend so its what 15% maybe 20% Right at the Start 80-85 % Left ? Its… Read more »
Have the feds stooped to concern trolling? Unfortunately, that would be quite believable in this age of dumbassery, where even the highest echelons of the Empire are functionally retarded.
Yes, that’s your tax dollar at work. Bury them in bullshit and lies, worked like a charm for 100 years. Ain’t workin so good now. The rich fucks see the ice cracking, they’re starting to shit their pants. Afuckinmen.
This is an age without precedent because of the media and the fact that Western people’s have been under mind control/lobotomized for 50+ years. There are most for whom this spell has completely destroyed their mind, and there are some whose instincts remained intact (albeit harmed). Secession is the only feasible “positive” way forward. It main sound stupid, but as a little kid I watched “Diff’rent Strokes.” As a tyke, I laughed because Arnold was a midget and he said, “Whatchup talkin’ bout Willis.” But we all were imbibing the insane left wing narrative and the idea that the point… Read more »
Gary Coleman was martyred for you and I. poor little guy never caught a break…
Looking back at ’80s popular culture it becomes clear that the Three Men and A Baby… films were intended as vehicles to begin conditioning the masses to accept alternative type marriages and adoption arrangements.
that film trope has been around a long time. let me introduce you to Shirley Temple.
For years it seemed I was the only one ranting about the Smart Black/Stupid White-themed commercials that were trending on TV, and still are. I recognized it as an anti-white psyop 25 years ago, and we’re now seeing its effects in the ethnomasochism infecting our people.
To Sir with Love, lol. The erudite African engineer bringing civilization to England. Love the song though
this is a very interesting article i found, when searching for comparisons of german military traditions vs American ones:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/09/09/an-elusive-command-philosophy-and-a-different-command-culture/
“Either the people of the West want to live or not. The real crisis is that there is no agreement on that answer.” ————————————- Spot on, Z. The idea of comparing present day America to Rome or Russia to me, is just so much like picking the fly chit out of the pepper. The Romans were nothing like Americans. Their Barbarians were of far better quality than ours in the present day. The Soviets are nothing like Americans either. When the old Soviet empire collapsed, it was very nearly replaced with neofeudalism, black markets, and warlords. Ours is entirely an… Read more »
anything short of this is counter-productive. kill them or join them, it really is that simple (except they won’t let you join them, so it’s even simpler).
The subject of the Taki piece today, moral motivation for partisan fervor, ties in nicely with last Thursdays abortion discussion. I say again, give me a better moral motivator for pure partisan fervor for our side than fully embracing the pro-life movement. I am utterly unmoved by any arguments that talk about abortion being good eugenic policy. It has failed as such and if you must insist on killing off the rival Identity groups the most tried and true method is to segregate them geographically and then starve them. The geographic and political separation is part of the plan already… Read more »
There’s a better one on the horizon. Since the left is scraping the barrel on finding new kinds of sex perverts for whom to demand civil rights, they’re down to kiddie fiddlers. Since diddling kids doesn’t have that “it’s people’s private lives” defense that lets the camel’s nose in the tent like with sodomites and ladyboys, once the left starts insisting that we respect the sexual orientation of diddlers we have the perfect moral outrage to stand on with conviction. Just keep pointing out that Rittenhouse shot a child rapist, and that the celebrities eulogized that child rapist. Therefore hollywood… Read more »
It is certainly another gift from the enemy that are moving towards embracing this further depravity but it does not supplant the central importance of baby killing. I agree we must add “Child Molester!” to “Baby Killer!” in the list of condemnations though.
Speaking of gifts. You catch seth and silvermans Santa inc. Lolz, comments were epic.
St. George held a gun to a pregnant woman’s belly as his posse burglarized her house. The scummier the villain, the more the Left transfigures him. They are a sick and depraved people.
The point is not to inspire shame in the shameless, the point is to instill fanatical resolve in our side.
That is an excellent point.
“give me a better moral motivator for pure partisan fervor for our side than fully embracing the pro-life movement”
Has that worked since Roe? So what are the chances that basing your entire philosophy around abortion — a single issue — will work now? Probably you will fail while energizing the other side and sidelining far more important issues. I’m sure that’s the point. Normie conservatives are always looking for a means to avoid uncouth topics such as race.
a.) No where did I state the movement should base its entire philosophy around abortion. I encouraged incorporation as one of the core moral principles of a general white identity movement. How that can be construed as avoiding the race issue I cannot imagine so you’ll have to explain that further. b.) The anti-abortion movement has achieved far more success in the practical suppression of their political / moral opponents in the establishment than any other counter movement I can think of. I attribute that success to its moral absolutism and the willingness it inspires in its adherents to go… Read more »
” The anti-abortion movement has achieved far more success … ” You didn’t name any of these successes, so I doubt they exist. In fact, looking at the myriad issues from gay marriage to trans, I’d say the Right has been thoroughly routed everywhere. Anyways, abortion is still legal decades after Roe, so you haven’t had any success there, either. “No where did I state the movement should base its entire philosophy around abortion.” You suggested abortion should be the prime motivator, which is basically the same thing. Abortion is ranked pretty low in most polls of voter concern, so… Read more »
I can’t be bothered engaging in a debate about easily confirmed facts. A refusal to recognize them does not constitute an argument. Also, by definition a movement opposed to liberal democracy has little use for the results of polls, even if their accuracy could be trusted. The point of the Taki article is to shed light on the relative strength of fanaticism vs bourgeois objectivism and my point is suggest a vehicle for instilling that kind of strength and dedication. I remain eager to hear other suggestions.
A jewish carpenter? Unlikely.
Yeah. We’ve come to the point where all the studies and reasoning are done and the central question is simply whether we would like to stay alive. It’s a more nuanced question than people think. To will some end is to will the means to achieve it. We’ve systematically dismantled everything that makes it possible for the next generation to show up and thrive, so one might reasonably conclude that what “we” want is oblivion. Obviously, the conservatives are offering more of the same, attempting to baptize all the pathologies of the liberal democratic death cult into a patriotic ersatz… Read more »
It might be better to ask, given modern technology, if a tiny group of supremely arrogant people want everybody else to die before dropping dead themselves.
Peter Heather’s thesis in his book ‘Empires and Barbarians’ is that the Roman Empire fell because its economy was not diverse enough. It was almost entirely based on agriculture. Once it lost its breadbasket in north Africa it could no longer generate the revenue to pay its soldiers.
The US economy is exceedingly diverse in comparison to Rome. It may just trundle on as long as the right people continue to get paid.
Yes, “muddle through” is the war cry of the Normie snit fit. But is that really any way to live one’s life as the cuck’s cuck. I’d rather die with my boots on, thank you very much.
uh, the roman economy was based on taxation and tribute. once it bled the empire dry, the entire thing collapsed. people no like workey no money.
Peter Heather’s book is historical revisionism. It’s an attempt to ignore mass immigration which sapped the spirit of Rome because immigration and “other” worship are currently in vogue; Peter Ward-Perkins addresses this misconception in his book “The Fall of Rome.” I have no doubt future Western historians will claim “the economy” — somehow, despite previous depressions — killed the United States when obviously the central issue was more about issues upstream of the economy, like the demographics.
As far as I can remember Heather actually argued in favour of the migrants bringing down the empire. His point was the soldiers refused to fight them because they weren’t being paid.
It’s probably more complicated than what Heather presents. The Goths, for instance, invaded Italy during the early fifth century and destroyed much of the regional economy, leaving some provinces unable to pay even a reduced — by 4/5ths — tax rate. Rome couldn’t pay its soldiers, or much of anything, due to the invasion. Chicken or egg?
Heather’s book is very good and does address these issues. The original commenter did not accurately describe the book.
Heather points out the Persians found out a way to improve agicultural yield( Greek advisers or Roman deserters) in their eastern provinces thus generating the capital necessary to raise a standing army the size of Rome’s. Rome therefore had to double its army at a time when the cost of the army ate up 90% of revenue.
Diverse in what sense? Other than agriculture, what booming industries were there ca. 500 AD that Rome was not involved with?
Yeah I caught that too. The non-agricultural economy is something new, like last 100 years new. Even in the early 1900s, well into the industrial revolution, there was “agriculture” and “everything else”.
the romans focused their manufacturing capacity on war making materiel. they purchased a lot of things in from other countries, with their war profits. a kind of “must always be growing” situation, like ours.
Huh. Yeoman agriculture was America’s #1 industry and lifestyle until 1942.
The War changed us.
Our techno future was based on its innovations, and the colleges for those educated G.I.’s.
The US economy is probably the furthest from being diverse on the planet. It is ludicrously concentrated in “services” and that largely consists of services that add no meaningful economic value. When push comes to shove the technorati of Google, Facebook, Twitter et al whose circulation data that serves solely to cater to the psychic well-being of wokels, the financial parasites skimming their 300 basis points and the “insurance companies” crushing the worst healthcare system in the G20 countries add no value. When people are, perforce, focused on the neccesaries: food, clothing, shelter because the vast $40 trillion bubble that… Read more »
The Woke economy consists mostly of passing e-docs to each other.
Bob, I’m with you. I find that comparing America to Rome has become a tired cliche, as it channels all discussion into well-worn ruts, and disallows much more controversial, grounded speculation on the topic.
Anton should be ashamed of himself a tad, if you ask me.
What’s especially tiresome is that every discussion of comparing America to the collapse of Rome is that it ignores that only half of Rome collapsed.
Yes exactly and there were multiple Romes, even in the west: the republic, the classical empire, then a military dictatorship, summing up to more than 1000 years in total. The empire effectively “fell” in the third century before being reconstituted and lasting another two centuries. And even the Visigoth kings who came afterward saw themselves as taking Rome over, not wrecking it. Roman history is fascinating but I think the right comparison to our times is with the Christianization of Rome, not its multi-century “fall.”
except the US started christian and ended pagan, while in Rome it was vice versa 🙂
[…] ZMan looks at drawings. […]
The Zman has noted before that comparison of America to the Roman Republic and Roman Empire is tricky, because the timespan of Ancient Rome was so long that it’s easy to pick and choose things to fit whatever narrative one wants to promote. That said: Rome proper may have fallen around 500 AD, but the true wealth, leadership, and culture had already decamped to the Eastern Roman empire…Constantinople. Which lasted another thousand years. Perhaps our true ruling elites are planning much the same? Eyes on Australia and New Zealand – the two places most cited as “bugout” havens for the… Read more »
ProZNoV: “BTW, good luck emigrating to either NZ or AUS. It’s like they don’t want to follow the US example or something. Hard and expensive to get into; they jealously guard their citizenship rights.”
Unless you are Han or subcon. They are swamped with them and more arrive annually. Not to mention the Lebanese and subSaharans. Not certain what the exact racial mix is now (hard to find credible statistics) but it’s trending the same way as every other White nation.
Australia is more diverse than Europe, other than France and Sweden.
who the fukk would want to live in those arkhaven prison colonies?!
No they don’t
Go walk around Melbourne for a day. Especially near a university.
Yeah, Australia is tough to emigrate to if you’re white and not part of the Commonwealth. Other than that, not so much. Australia was allowing in more than 500k a year (600k+ in 2019) before Covid. That’s on a population of 25 million. That’s more than 2% a year. And since most of those immigrants are young, you’re looking at close to 10% a year immigration rates for young people, i.e. the future. Here’s the list of the Top 10 countries of origin: India People’s Republic of China United Kingdom Philippines Vietnam Nepal New Zealand Pakistan South Africa United States… Read more »
again, immigration is not the problem (now) in Australia. the authoritarian police state government run by insane women and supported by the army and police is the problem. more 3rd worlders ignoring the rules is actually the best thing that can happen to a white country, in these crazy times.
Do confuse nuclear powered for Nuclear armed, the contract is for reactors only.
Either way Australia does not have the population to support them.
“the managerial class thinks things are going great”
Which for them, it kind of is. But I can’t escape the feeling their McMansions (nice as they are) are built on sand.
Down the street you can hear them scream “You’re a disgrace”
As they slam the door in normie’s face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbors start to gossip and drool
He cries “You guys must be mad
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?”
Against the door he leans and starts a scene
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
And so McMansions made of sand
Fall in the sea eventually
oh man, a hendrix homage!
comment checker
Axis bold as love. Nice one Z. The TRS guys are doing backflips today. Steady as she goes Zman. I’m counting on you.
I actually spent the weekend with people from the DC managerial class. Went to a nice parade in beautiful Old Town, Alexandria. Nice lunch afterward and then to a few nice shops. Later, went to a dinner/party at someone’s house. Almost all of the guests’ livelihoods were government related. Believe me, they have no clue what’s happening, though they did seem to mention the state of the country a bit more than usual so perhaps they’re noticing a subtle change in the way the wind is blowing. (I should not that these people are either high-enough on the food chain… Read more »
This is very much what university towns are like out here in flyover country. The good times never end and there’s no indication they ever will. But go ten miles down the road and you can be in the middle of a cornfield with only one or two houses in sight, or in an economically distressed small town. The people who occupy these university towns can probably count on one hand the number of times they have visited a local community nearby. For them it’s like visiting a zoo.
I liken them to floating in a river that’s headed for severe rapids. You cannot feel the river’s current when you’re floating along with it. But the moment you swim against the current, just briefly, you get that Uh-Oh feeling of being sent where you may not want to go. That’s how it feels in my piece of Commieland. All the smiles become more stretched and more topics become verboten because the alternative is fighting a current that’s picking up speed. If they could see the end, the waves dashing against the jagged rocks, then they could understand why we… Read more »
Good story, Citizen. It’s kinda like how fish don’t see water.
But over on the Left Coast the golden people are beginning to notice.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/never-seen-anything-it-los-angeles-residents-stunned-violent-crimes-creep-wealthier
The sense of “This isn’t supposed to happen to us!” is quite remarkable.
Theses are the same people that started calling homeless junkie bums ‘unhoused neighbors’ a few years ago, same people that gave drivers licenses to illegals. Same people that think it’s GM’s fault that catalytic converters are stolen because GM didn’t build anti theft cages around them when the car was built. All the joggers that were arrested for smash and grabs, were out of jail before it made it onto normies 5 o’clock news cast. I know this I walk amongst them.
“I often feel like a spy or traveler from the future watching a dying people who don’t know that they’re dying.”
That, without question, is the coolest thing I have ever read.
Holy sh*t. I realized I know how to make that happen, too.
Plus, I’ve seen that future. White high civilization will retreat to the extensive cave systems while the Eloi savages slaughter each other in the ruins above.
CroMagnons we were. CroMagnons we will be. Gots me some plans, I do.
Side note: CroMagnon cave art was as subtle as the finest Rembrandt, 60,000 years ago. True intelligence, Sapiens Sapiens, was born in those sheltering caves. Plus, they looked like any Gunter or Giuseppe. Extinction? Don’t even. Citizen, your chance comment not only unlocked the crystallization of a theoretical model re the memory chains of the radiant ecology- it burns so brightly!- it may yet be a key component in coalescing nascent… efforts…in the background per that Cave future. As the bad guys in a Batman movie, we cannot begin to express our profound gratitude. All here contribute so very, very… Read more »
Amen. You just nailed it These fuckers are in Oblivion. blinded by money, clueless till the end.
they are true lotus eaters
Americans are a people that could not/ would not get along in their home countries. For most of American history, that worked out pretty well. The new guy would take the crappy job the existing denizens wouldn’t do (at a crappy wage), save, raise kids and BOOM, his kids are American. But what do you do when most everyone in the country is descended from the “$#@!-this I’m leaving” gene? What do you do when the official story to the new guys is “white man bad”? My ancestors did not stick around to make their Scandinavian/ Mediterranean countries better places.… Read more »
That’s the question Is it worth fighting for? What are the rewards? I have to wonder if most white people are at the point where they’re effectively saying that if you want it, you can have it. I’m done. I was truly surprised when the Mexicans waltzed right into the south with zero pushback. I always thought, sure you guys can do that in California because no one is from here really so they aren’t going to fight your invasion. But wait til you try that in the south. But nothing. Maybe we are just in a dormant state yet… Read more »
well since the mexicans are driving the blacks out, i would call that an upgrade.
Of course, all countries, if you go back far enough, result from conquest and “theft.” The US was no exception, and we should not have felt exceptionally guilty. But just because we shouldn’t have doesn’t mean that we didn’t.
i don’t think people feel guilty about shit. but they do learn to parrot the lingo..
Part of it is the anarchotyranny. The government will refuse to do its job enforcing the border or reforming immigration, but woe to you if you try to do it.
that’s why you do things like bring homeless into wealthy areas, that implode the system. give it a good fuckin’ push and down she goes…
You articulated what I have been thinking for a few years. I am glad I am not the only one.
There is a parallel to this in many countries. They’ll defend themselves to the death against invasions from civilised neighbours. And shrug their shoulders at being inundated by others. Maybe there is a subconscious belief that honour can only be lost to a civilised enemy?
I believe it also has to do with middle class whites not seeing brown foreigners as an economic threat. In other words, I don’t mow lawns or fix roofs, so who cares? But bring in an engineer and I’m threatened. The impact of Mexicans/Africans voting for policies they left behind in their shithole countries is just now becoming more apparent.
IIRC, one of the late stages in Rome’s collapse was the confusion of gender and gender roles.
Yup, won’t be long now.
One of the diffiuclties with making a comparison to any other civilizational collapse is that ours seems to have elements from just about every other one. The mother of all collapses, in a way.
“Like the nomenklatura, the managerial class thinks things going great.” I cannot agree with this, and I’m not sure Z believes it either given that in an article last week he stated that the elites are in a frenzy because everything is going sideways and they don’t know why. Now, of course, a different take on historical decline, or going “sideways” is provided by Dutton and Woodley who argue that–and this derives from Spengler–we’re in the winter of civilization. This winter has been precipitated by cognitive decline, which began soon after the industrial revolution, and which was triggered by deselection… Read more »
I think the resolution to the question of whether the elites think things are going well is that the elites can look at official statistics and see that metric is being hit, but can also see protestors and feel like something’s amiss. Elites use the word problem to mean something that can be exploited for political gain, not necessarily a failure of sorts. Because they use words to manipulate people, they simply lack a vocabulary to describe things (i.e. words are tools, not descriptors). They’re anxious, but in denial, so their official story is that everything is fine.
“The American ruling elite does not have dusty old books about political theory to justify their belief in themselves as the authentic voice of the people, but they believe it, nonetheless.” The “American ruling elite ” does NOT believe they are the authentic voice of the people. They just know they have to convince the peasants that they are. Given their controlled nature of all forms of media, as well as law creation, law interpretation, and law enforcement, makes their ability to do this a slam dunk. As I have been saying for years, nothing is going to change until… Read more »
When you do not have food, you have *one* problem. When you have food, you have *many* problems.
Comfort confuses, calamity clarifies.
no tickee, no shirtee
Peter Turchin’s book, War and Peace and War discusses another aspect that is often overlooked: the unsustainable growth of the “elite” class, which includes bureaucrats, academics, managers, etc. It is usually accompanied by dependence upon slave labour to do the actual work for all those elites. In the West today look how many white women cannot be bothered to raise their own children, as such work is unbecoming of elites who went to university to study Marxist sociology and the like. Instead, white women now pay illegal immigrants slave wages to do their child-rearing, while they themselves occupy office chairs… Read more »
Slavery never ends well. Zman once said (I’m paraphrasing) if he could go back in time and tell our forefathers one thing, it would be to pick their own damn cotton.
In the realms of engineering and business, the malady of “analysis paralysis” is well known, as is the harm that it frequently causes. A version of this may be called “diagnosis necrosis”, which happens when everyone is endlessly examining our Big Picture state of decline as if that alone is a remedy. At some point you have to shit or get off the pot. Which means do something (as in tangible rather than mental masturbation). And since none of us commands any forces large enough to put a dent in the problem, a different paradigm is needed. The Wuflu was… Read more »
Corollary to Anonymous White Male comment re: nothing changing till there is no food to buy. Intelligence or not, nothing provides more focus than starvation. Something would then change – fast.
When I was gainfully employed many years ago, I often encountered “analysis paralysis” on committees. I had a line I used which seemed to shake things up, “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong!” This statement usually followed by dumb silence—which was somewhat the purpose.
As long as folk focused on me as the fall guy, we were able to make some decisions as I recall.
I sure hope Jeff Bezos is wearing a go-pro the moments he leaves Lauren Sanchez to the marauding mob and he sneaks out a secret passageway to his helicopter
he’ll be exiting that copter sooner than he thinks…
In terms of the American Empire’s dealings with the rest of the world, I agree with Z that it looks more like a much larger version of the Athenian Empire than the Roman Empire. However, the internal American Empire may end up looking more like the end of the Roman Empire. Regardless, Z ends with the question that always vexes me: What happened to us? Why did Western Europeans and their diaspora stop caring? Just prior to WWI, the West strode astride the world. We were so advanced technologically that we seemed almost an alien race to much of the… Read more »
My pet theory is it started with the Great Schism. The Great White West was founded with the Church as its heart. The Church always has had a specific way of organizing itself that allowed Christendom to flourish and expand. Eventually the office of the Pope was able to claim for itself great political and financial power and managed to dominate the “better” half of Christendom and break away from Church. The corruption of the Papacy inevitably led to the Reformation and thus moral decay happened when anyone could invent their own “church” with private interpretation of absolutely everything. When… Read more »
Certainly, the decline of religion and the Enlightenment are the two most talked about, and rightly so. Those absolutely played a part. Everything became relative. I’d add that a nearly unbroken 500-year winning streak for Western Europeans can do a lot to chip away at your resolve. Trust fund kids are rarely as stout as their ancestors who built the society. Ed Dutton may also be on to something when he talks about the falling morality rate and “mutants.” All I know is that future historians will look at this time in amazement – and probably use it as a… Read more »
I think you’re largely right about the corruption of the Papacy and its pursuit of temporal power being a large source of our current cornucopia of problems. That was one of Dostoevsky’s points in “The Grand Inquisitor.”
But oddly, it seems the West was near its peak during the times of Papal power, and ever since abdicating its lands and role as Western arbiter things have gone to sh*t.
Orthodox patriarchs were also not exactly poor.
It’s not about well off or even corrupt clergy. It’s about absolute centralized power. The Church was designed to withstand corruption and it’s done pretty well to this day!
Then came the Great White Civil War (1914-1945), which seemed to psychologically devastate Western Europe. Granted, it’s understandable to some degree, but it’s not like the Europeans never had nasty wars in the past – 30-year War anyone. They managed to pick themselves up for those and move on.
Well, in historical terms, we’re still in the aftermath. The Thirty Years War was still reverberating through Europe of 1720.
We may still pick ourselves up and move on.
Wars did not have the technology that 1914-1945 had. Yeah, prior wars were nasty throughout history, but now they were existential and widespread. Nothing since seems to have reversed such trend, indeed we have even more technology at our disposal and the next war will not be a “brother war”, but rather a racial war which will inevitably be of the existential sort.
you really should read up about the 30 years war; i’ll give you a hint: WWI would be a pimple on the butt of the 30 years war, in terms of sheer destruction of western european society.
And let’s not forget the invasions from the south and east–Germanic tribes, Huns, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, etc. The damage done by these peoples is incalculable.
30 years war within primarily the Holy Roman Empire is not the world—as from Atlantic to Pacific. Vicious as it was, it did not produce bio, chemical and nuclear weapons. If everyone in central Europe had died, it would not have the same potential impact as a future conflict using such weapons as we have today. If Central Europe is your limit of concern, fine. It’s no longer mine.
One difference between us and Japan is the level of immigration. Once a critical mass of diversity is reached, it seems return is nigh impossible without drastic measures. Diversity pets also support particular candidates which become the power base – while still technically a “minority”, that base becomes the margin of victory which can’t be ignored (at least with lip service if nothing else). Add in other factors/incentives (cheap labor, daddy/mommy issues, lawfare for wrong think, expand consumer base, social acceptance reinforced with relentless propaganda from every sector) and you have a perfect storm for disaster.
I’ll tell you when and how the decline started. The early, incubation period, started with mass movie watching of silent era. super tight controls on what could be shown (Hayes Code) kept the contagion in check, for the most part. TV was the crack cocaine of entertainment though; so early 1950’s for the start of the cultural…trans-mutation is the only word i can come up with. and the thing that bears most scrutiny, is that the deterioration of social norms was present even when there was no obscenity in the viewed material (although obscenity would of course supercharge the deterioration).… Read more »
Wasn’t there a study that showed, by coincidence at least, that when TV is introduced to a culture that it’s “replacement rate” drops?
Women model what they see on television. ( Men too at a level, I’m sure, but soap opera watching is not a male pastime. ) I read someplace that in rural Brazil the women used to have big families. Then the birthrate started dropping off for no clear reason. Some clever researchers tied it to the coincident arrival of cable TV and daytime soap operas, which depicted the lives of affluent urban women with 2-3 children max.
yes there was. tv is not benign. your brain is not relaxed when watching tv, it is active. the attraction of tv is strong enough to overcome (or more accurately, override) the procreative instinct.
Yeah, jewywood and kosher tv happened, here we are now in madness and destruction, according to plan, yes?
The achievements of whites have become mundane and been exported so much to the rest of the world that no one can make a legitimate comparison to what a society run by the lower races would really be like. Even in the poorest African country they still are getting a hold of cheap jeans and t-shirts when by themselves they’d be wearing animal skins. China, without the west to steal technology and buy food from, would be 99% peasant farmers whose only hope in life is to be able to afford some magic powdered tiger penis to cure the endemic… Read more »
Don’t sell the Chinese short. They built their economy into the second largest less than 40 years. Beg, borrow, steal—whatever it takes they did. We seem to think if we just packed up and left, they’d revert. That ship has sailed. 20 years ago we already had faculty collaborating with Chinese faculty in research projects and the one thing I remember was that the collaboration was considered mutual and beneficial according to those involved. I knew then something had fundamentally changed. Maybe they might not have that creative ability we like to pride ourselves on, but they sure have the… Read more »
“What is most interesting in Anton’s essay is what is not mentioned. For example, the Roman Empire in the last two centuries was a system run by people who had no hand in creating it. ” I.E. The –most important part—, which is why all these essays and grand pontifications which ramble on for pages are for the most part mental circle jerks. It is infuriating to me because it isn’t just people who are paid to wax poetic but society as a whole that suffers from this severe affliction. Endless banter, endless theories, angst, hand-wringing, etc. Always looking for… Read more »
“The –most important part—, which is why all these essays and grand pontifications which ramble on for pages are for the most part mental circle jerks. It is infuriating to me because it isn’t just people who are paid to wax poetic but society as a whole that suffers from this severe affliction. Endless banter, endless theories, angst, hand-wringing, etc. Always looking for new solutions, new data, new theories. It is absurd.” Sounds like you have described the world of academia. Average to above average intelligence people that have to find “subtleties” and “nuance” in the perception of reality. Rather… Read more »
What’s funny about academics and their unending search for subtlety and nuance is that all their constant blather can be easily replaced by knowing the 2-4 biggest variables and planning on 15-20% attrition. In agriculture, this would basically boil down to knowing your growing zone, soil quality, and fertilizer needs, and planting about 10% more acreage than you think you need. In framing construction, you need to know board quality, span, and weight load, and go about 20% “stronger” than required. Even in politics, you really just need to focus on crime, trade and infrastructure and keep expenditures about 5-10%… Read more »
Quite true. But even the HBD crowd, Sailer, Murray, etc., can’t seem to accept the true reality of race.
They’ll provide endless charts and graphs about racial differences and then crickets about white identity.
The infuriating part is that I won’t deny nurture has a role, but my counterparts seem completely unable to accept that nature also has at least some role. Nurture may get you X far, but only within the limitations nature has provided. Personally, I peg the ratio at 70/30 nature/nurture, but you can’t even get AWLFs of either gender to admit 10/90. Simply accepting reality, and then working with rather than against it will have much better results.
Immediate problem I find with AWFL’s is that they all “KAGO” (know a good one) and always attempt to extend that one data point to describe/support all members of a group. Logical fallacy of course, but none are known for their reasoning skills when applied to HBD.
They’ve watched Trading Places too many times. All blacks are just waiting to have their inner genius unshackled; to be domesticated. Meanwhile, all whites are the recipients of unearned privilege, whose natural state is lying drunk in a gutter.
“The saddest part is this- if you are a normie or a bleeding heart leftie, were you to acknowledge this simple fact you would do more to uplift your ‘pets’ in a few years than has been accomplished in the past 6 decades.”
You assume they actually want to uplift their pets. Then they wouldn’t have pets.
Put this on your christmas cards
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-zoologists-martin-and-osa-johnson-with-pygmy-people-for-the-movie-94219642.html?
It’s nurture, honest.
Most good people will eventually leave Los Angeles, leaving only thugs and immigrants to provide security for the rich Hollywood types. I wonder how long that will last before it turns ugly?
They’ll outsource security like they already increasingly do. Another golden era for security contracting is around the corner.
Los Angeles is not like other cities, it’s much more diffuse. there are no walkable parts, you have to use a car. it is indefensible; murders already happening in wealthy enclaves. Malibu is protected by an impenetrable wall of 6′ wood fences, made crumbly by the sun.
Zman: Brilliant essay. So very typical of why I read here daily – only you cut to the chase and boil all the historical comparisons down to what truly matters – do White people still retain the will to survive or not. My husband and I attended his office Christmas party a few nights ago, and it was like a time warp. Although there was only a costume suggestion, the theme was The Great Gatsby (after talking with the woman who organized it I’m not certain this was consciously ironic or not). There they were, the generally older crowd about… Read more »
“These people were, almost to a man, blissfully unaware that any economic or social catastrophe was approaching. It was all predictions of a terrific economic year in 2022, and the company is a family, and we can all get along just great.”
Is it unawareness or denial? I honestly don’t know and was in a similar situation last night, sans the Gatsby motif, and now and then things got real but were quickly clawed back. My take is quite a few know the iceberg has been struck but choose to savor the time before the ship sinks.
Nah most of these types float a cope of the sort that if some half dozen things happen exactly as they should then the system will righted. They won’t/can’t acknowledge that those half dozen things are either never going to happen or have already been tried and failed (“real liberal democracy has never been tried!”)
I write for a college sports website, and the vast majority of subscribers are your prototypical Grillers. Aside from the usual sports forums, there are also a couple where political discussion occurs. I monitor those forums to get an impression of just what the Grillers are really thinking. My impression is that approximately one third of them are oblivious and clueless. However, the other two thirds at least have an inkling of the anti-white agenda and the encroaching madness of the times. Very few of them are red pilled like us–they wouldn’t be Grillers then, would they?–but they are headed… Read more »
Ostei: ” . . . but they are headed in this direction by fits and starts.” Perhaps, but I’m not convinced that will be sufficient to change anything. One of my husband’s high school friends meets your definition in many ways. He finally bought a gun a few years ago. He’s willing to acknowledge racial reality in private. But nothing substantive – about his lifestyle or family or future – has changed. To the best of our knowledge, he is still counting on his federal pension to see him through the coming decade(s), he has no real plan to move… Read more »
so what you are saying, is the great griller herd is stirring. hmm, grillers as the new buffalo, i like it, it fits.
Griller Soldier, mulleted Normie
There was a Griller Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Europe, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival
These things stop becoming fun once you understand that outside the world is a mess. Rather than pretending to be flappers they should be cleaning their rifles.
Like those people in Waukesha. They had this illusion things were still as they were 50 if not 75 years ago. What was their theme of the day?
Bottom line, these kinds of respites from reality are for the winners. They’re great when your station in life is secure. They’re de facto victory celebrations. Performing them while hungry wolves are outside is a recipe for tragedy.
Reminds me of a CompuServe company picnic I attended in the mid-90s. “Oh, that internet thing? We don’t think it’s going to take off.”
I remember a comic in the late 90s or so saying ‘imagine if communications technology had worked in reverse. People would be saying, you gotta ditch the internet and email and get yourself a phone; you can actually TALK to the person!’
Listening to a podcast on early English history helps one understand how little Anglos have changed through time. In the Bronze Age Britain, some regions relied upon pork and others relied upon beef for protein. We see this outcome carried through today to regional differences in American BBQ that correspond roughly to the same English regions and peoples that colonized early America. Likewise, it bears remembering that with the fall of Rome came a dark age in Britain. As the Romans left the island, they took their technologies and ways of governance. Glass and pottery manufacture ground to a halt… Read more »
I’m not sure why, but this comment brings to mind a long-ago zombie novel about how the remnants of civilization retreat northward to arctic border regions where they are “defended” by the ambient cold weather because the zombies freeze in the ice which then stops their migration. In real life terms, most of the current invasion is driven by the freebies and mid latitude balmy weather. Methinks you won’t find much vibrancy in Northern Alberta when the freebies dry up and everyone must fend for themselves. And why is it that the best snipers in the world come from Western… Read more »
And (snipers) Finland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
Hard times make hard/tough men. Famous snipers are not just good shots, they must endure all sorts of hardship tracking and finding their “prey”. Read about them and their exploits and you’ll appreciate the toughness and endurance in the field.
In WWII the kiwis had many great snipers because their country was overrun with rabbits in the 30s and they got lots of practice culling the bunnies.
But… Somalis in Minnesota?
Because polar bears are, like, really, really fast?
****
And they are. Blazin’.
Pipeline welders in Alaska build a big metal cage they move along with each stretch they’re working on.
During a snowstorm, the bears suddenly smash into that cage, like appearing out of nowhere. Ya can’t see them in the blizzard, so that’s when they strike. The cage rings like a bell when they hit it.
polar bears are genuine man eaters, too :).
The first question we have to ask is if this land is cursed or not. Do we even belong here? That’s a question a lot of people never considered. But it’s critical because you only fight and die for what you believe in, and if you don’t believe then you are probably going to lose. I look at California. People were not from here, so the moment things got tough they fled. They weren’t going to suffer for this place. They’d come here to have some fun, do the California thing, the California phase, and when the Mexicans started arriving… Read more »
bbq came from britain, who knew?
If it’s made from beef and even vaguely edible, it’s been eaten in Britain (or, rather,England, it’s not for nothing that the Welsh are known as sheep-shaggers, they ate them too))
> What is most interesting in Anton’s essay is what is not mentioned. From what I’ve read of him, this is pretty much Anton’s classic style. Get as close to the edge of acceptable discourse as possible, and leave the discerning reader to fill in the blanks. Given his open conversations with dissident figures, it’s doubtful he’s unaware of these holes in his articles. His position, however, forces him to use plausible deniability that he’s not crossing over to complete wrong-think. Hillsdale is extreme right when compared to most universities, but that still makes it only smack in the middle… Read more »
Anton comes probably as close to the line/reality as anyone can without being disappeared outside the world of dissidents.
Very interesting times. Anton is (was?) a Jaffaite/Clarmonster. I’ve been reading the Glenn Ellmers book, “The Soul of Politics” which is about the philosophy of Jaffa. A lot of it is a boring rehash of the usual Jaffaite drivel, but the last two chapters almost read like an admission that the Jaffaite notion of America as the bearer of the Universal Idea of “equality” and the final eschaton of an Americanized humanity guided by Natural Law and Great Statesmen like Lincoln and Churchill is a failure. Ellmers and Anton, at least, are groping toward the truth. They’ve still gotta come… Read more »
The Claremont people seem to be fine with paying lip service to Lincoln, while going against everything a modern Lincoln would do in our current situation.
If that keeps the donor money from clueless Jaffaites flowing, I’m fine with that.
Not a Lincoln scholar, but I wonder about him. Very race realist rhetoric early on, willing to preserve slavery to preserve the union iirc, but also willing to wage war to preserve it, which ended up destroying it. Technically didn’t free any slaves, and it looks to me unleashing the crazies was a desperate move at the low ebb of Union fortune.
I have a feeling he was a much more complicated figure than anyone will say, not the great good or evil, but more like an ambitious schlep swept along by history.
In the Jaffaite theology, Lincoln is a world-historical individual tasked with the prophetic mission of rediscovering that what the Founders REALLY meant was equality as the foundational American principle, leading the American people toward that goal and atoning for the sin of slavery, through the destruction of of the South.
I’m not making that up, either. Lincoln and “liberal democracy” are for them, the end of history. The United States is “mosaich”.
Prosecuting a needless war that resulted in the deaths of half a million Americans at each others’ hands puts him squarely in the “evil” category.
If early 19th century abolitionists had had a scintilla of intellectual integrity they would have condemned and exterminated the African slave traders like Tippu Tip, just as now the suppliers of illegal drugs like Pablo Escobar are the quarry of international law enforcement. But abolition wasn’t really the goal. The Puritans of the Northeast were carrying on the War of the Three Kingdoms fought between their ancestors and the Catholic Stuarts. Lincoln could have purchased every slave in North America and sent them back to their homes but he and his associates preferred to waste the lives of Northern soldiers,… Read more »
The buck stops here, so fair enough. War was probably coming no matter who was in office, though.
I guess the parallels to Weimar are too obvious to mention. Why search the distance mists of time when a recent historical template exists? Sorta same players and manifestations of pathology. Nonetheless, Carthage must be destroyed.
Modern America is nothing like interwar Germany. The only point of comparison is both times were populated by bipeds. Otherwise, there are no useful comparisons.
Fpr one thing, the dollar is incredibly strong versus every other currency.
That was not the case for the German mark between the wars.
Wild Geese: True, but only because every other currency is weak as well. What really backs up ‘confidence’ in the dollar? Our moribund ‘service economy’? Our purported reserves of gold? Our diversity? When I ask my husband if his customers discuss (or if he gets a general sense of) why they buy and sell he says the majority don’t even know – they just go wherever they think they can make a quick profit. There are some who make plans for an uncertain future, but they still play the market because $.
3g4me-
The USD is figuratively the cleanest dirty shirt with no viable alternative.
Europe is non-competitive, has no natural resources or nukes.
China has massive internal problems and no one really trusts them. They lack clean water, arable land, and have an insane %age of wealth tied up in overinflated junk real estate. At present, they don’t seem able to project military force.
Not as true as you’d like to think. Too lazy to find it but a write up on the interwar currency issue made the case that the WWI reparations A) made the mark the ‘reserve currency’ of Europe since there were so many floating around (similar to how what makes the dollar “reserve” is the amount of debt) B) then made the German economy addicted to the cheap debt used to create the marks.
I’m partway through reading, When Money Dies… and at this point I believe the author has implied your points about the German mark between the wars.
The analogy is weird. There are too-obvious parallels: worker immiseration via inflation; tradition and reality mocked with “degeneracy;” normies beaten in the street by leftists if they complain; rival genocidal plans openly aired; etc. For the comparison to fit, we have to be seen as ruled by *every* non-Nazi Weimar faction—and also they’re The Real Nazis…and they’re Jews.
If there’s an insight there, it’s that our rulers are as bad as all the bad regimes in living memory put together. Plausible. But they’re not *like* them all.
Then Nazis did not spring from nothing. They were not intellectuals, but they rode a long and deep intellectual tradition in Germany. Then you had the long military tradition upon which they built. We simply have none of those things in America. Of course, the interwar years were marked by the massive power vacuum created by the old regime collapsing after the war. Frankly, the circumstances that gave rise to the Nazis are interesting for their uniqueness. It is one of the few genuine outliers. The flag and costume types will not hear it as central to their fantasy is… Read more »
I concede that the nazi were a decidedly Teutonic movement. But you grossly overstate your case that no points of comparison exist. Rhymes, at the very least.
here are the comparisons i can think of off the top of my head:
1. great financial insecurity
2. break down of long held societal norms
3. widespread degeneracy by the citizenry
4. absolute polarization of politics
5. chaos and violence in the streets, continuously
6. communism and fascism battling for control of the inner party
7. high levels of narcotics usage
would love a post on the sui generis nature of the nazis. of course, it will be hard to avoid concluding that it was AH that was truly at the center of the riddle, the catalyst that set everything in motion 😛
“Berlin was a liberal hotbed of homosexuality and a mecca for crossdressers and transvestites where the first male-to-female surgery was performed – until the Nazis came to power, new book reveals.” Daily Mail, November 2014. The Greeks had gays to be sure, but the cultural flowering that was Weimar invented the abomination of trans bottom surgery. They had Bolshevik subversives. We have cultural Marxists. They were a democracy with suffrage, as are we. Reactionary anti-semitism arose in Weimar. Their elite hated rural volk, so do ours. I guess we will see if hyper-inflation arises here. Maybe that will settle the… Read more »
i bought a book all about the sex stuff in weimar. very interesting to say the least – with pictures! When the SS finally cleaned house of the SA (so long Ernst, it’s been grand!) they caught all the leadership literally in bed with their favorite butt boys – and machine gunned the lot of them. the movie “The Damned” 1969 shows this event in great detail.
https://historycollection.com/17-reasons-why-germanys-weimar-republic-was-a-party-lovers-paradise/12/
Here they maintain that ordering a child prostitute was as easy as ordering a pizza! Pizza, get it. Also, weird confluence of sex and violence. Mutilated women, you know, the usual. Party lovers paradise indeed.
There is also the fact that the Roman Republic failed when the economic arrangements supporting it failed. Every state eventually “fails”. They can’t be expected to endure forever because events and conditions both within them and outside their borders change in ways to which they are unable to adapt. With some it happens quickly, see Simon Bolivar and Gran Columbia. Others, Rome for instance, take longer, although Rome in 455 AD bore no resemblance to the Rome of 509 BC. The US seems unable to come to terms with changes in the international scene, the increasing viability of the Chinese… Read more »
I think out of necessity, and it is not going to come about easily, will be a return to an economy based on labor and manufacturing rather than finance. Or something like that. Maybe be it’s just my own bias because the only business that ever interested me was making things. I used to make furniture or work for a furniture maker just out of high school before I went off to college. Man that was fun and satisfying. But there was no future in it. My foreman made $7 an hour and I made $4 or something. And the… Read more »
Falcone: And all the furniture making has been exported. You can’t find anything new today that’s not cheap garbage made in Asia. I have bought some lovely pieces for myself and my son/daughter-in-law at consignment stores – quality craftsmanship and solid wood, all American made a generation or two ago. In many ways I’m rescuing cultural artifacts, the same as buying old children’s books or (if I could afford it) old silver services. From a people who valued craftsmanship and beauty to a people who consciously melt it down and destroy it purely because of it’s financial value, utterly unappreciative… Read more »
I curse all the particle board cabinetry and counters regularly. The tenants are rough on it and it falls apart at the slightest stress or contact with water. But that’s all you can get anymore without spending an arm and a leg.
Meanwhile we have handmade pieces of furniture in my home that are built like tanks and are older than I am.
Drives me nuts. I live in a deciduous forest and i can’t get hardwood. When i was a kid, they tore down an old hotel in covington ky. Dad did salvage. They used 1×4″ and 1×2″ solid black walnut for furring strips for paneling. Even back then i remember him dancing around happy when he discovered the wood.
Nice stuff in a rental only lasts until the tenant gets herself a nice unemployed boyfriend who funds his alcohol addiction by selling said nice stuff.
“….a nice unemployed boyfriend who funds his alcohol addiction by selling said nice stuff.” We’ve never had a tenant sell the cabinets, washer, dryer, stove or refrigerator out from under us while they still lived there, but a few have taken them with them when they moved. On the other hand, we’ve had tenants leave their own behind because it was too much trouble to move them. Had to haul an extra functional washer and a broken (but not irreparably so) dryer up out of a basement just a couple weeks ago. More often, they just junk them up and… Read more »
I know. The loss of our furniture making is heart breaking. But there was a furniture maker up in Ceres Ca. His prices weren’t too bad but all made in America. Or right here in California. Is this america? He he What held me back was his name, can’t remember off the top, but sounded ((())). So my gut sense was he was kind of a scammer. Or that he’d go through the motions of making real furniture but then he’d skimp in areas that mattered. I could be wrong but I never went ahead and plopped down money for… Read more »
A jewish carpenter? Unlikely.
Falcone: No clue and never heard of the guy. I’m not talking about pieces done by individual carpenters – I’ve bought mahogany and cherry pieces from the old American North Carolina based Drexel Heritage and Pulaski. I have my late mother-in-law’s pieces from Huntley (also from North Carolina which disappeared and merged with Thomasville). Plus I bought some mahogany things overseas – the wood is beautiful but the craftsmanship and detailing is not quite the same as the older American stuff.
seems like there is a lot of US based furniture on Etsy. might be wrong, but judging by comments the stuff i am talking about is hand made in the US by a single guy, or a small shop.
Should be plenty of Amish selling furniture online.
Be prepared to pay for that level of craftsmanship.
You can still find decent Made In America furniture. Not far from where I live we have the county fair during the summer and for the last twelve years, or so there are several Amish and other vendors from the Pennsylvania Dutch Country displaying lots of furniture that they have made. Some items are nice – albeit rather plain – while others a examples of beautiful detail. All of them are rock solid and very well made. There was one dining room set that was constructed of weathered cherry and it’s construction was simple yet beautiful. Unfortunately the Mrs. didn’t… Read more »
you can get some pretty sweet Midcentury furniture (made in the 50’s and 60’s) for about the same, or less, than similar new pieces. like a genuine Eames chair for under $2k.
Even low-end stuff from the early ’60s or before is a whole level of craftsmanship above the particle board crap. Even bottom end stuff often used hardwoods and dovetailed joints. Goodwill level crap from the early ’60s blows IKEA away.
Particle board was invented in 1950 and by the mid-60s it had gone mainstream and the rest is disposable history.
We still get this American made stuff if we need something:
https://thisendup.com/classic-sofa/
That couch may not be tops in comfort but it cannot be destroyed.
3g4me, Almost 20 years back, my wife & I over several years purchased some furniture pieces from Stickley, a direct lineal descendant from a business founded by one of the Stickley family, originally craftsmen working in the Arts and Crafts tradition. Their production facility is in New York state. Among the pieces were some nice quarter-sawn oak items. We wound up with a 3-leaf dining table with two end chairs and 6 side chairs, a large china cabinet, a 2-leaf kitchen table with 4 chairs, two couches, a nice settle, along with several occasional cabinets, an entertainment center, several side… Read more »
when normandy conquered britain in 1066, all ownership of everything, was in norman hands within 2 years. the previous anglo-saxon elite were returned to the general population, sans their property. i suspect same thing will happen here, to the eager beaver cadres working to tear down the place.
Yes, something along those lines
There will be a big shakeout with the pretenders at the margins getting crushed and thrown back into the general population
That pretty much defines Los Angeles. Lots of “rich” people in expensive homes but really no land to speak of. In the context of current day Los Angeles, they are very well to do. But when SHTF what’s that postage stamp size lot going to do for you? And their fake jobs will be no more. Better pack up the Land Rover and start driving til it runs out of gas.
two interesting old movies I watched recently: No Blade of Grass (from England), and Panic in Year Zero. In the English one, they are eating each other within a week. and in both, violent rapes are quite common. You never can have enough ammo, and even your best friend or your closest relative will kill you for the last piece of bread. One interesting item is that the women almost always counseled the wrong course of action because they think with their emotions, and the group only survived because the men made the hard cold decisions and eliminated the slackers.
haven’t seen PAnic for probably 50 years!? women will always counsel surrender, plus they don’t mind the rapey thing once things get extra spicey in the world.
In Reich’s book on his genetic research, he more than once describes “sudden” population changes were the males of a particular settled people dies “out” while the female lineage continues on. Seems women are more than happy to mate with the “new sheriff in town”. 😉
Women are hypergamous.
IOW, Patriarchy works!
> One interesting item is that the women almost always counseled the wrong course of action because they think with their emotions, and the group only survived because the men made the hard cold decisions and eliminated the slackers.
One common phrase I tell my wife when someone gets justifiably railed for being a public nuisance is “Some people need to get bullied.” She doesn’t understand it, never will, and should never need to.
russia also sees itself as the heir to imperial rome; czar being a version of Caesar.
Wouldn’t the War of 1812 be a better comparison to the Peloponnesian War? Athens and Sparta were both distinct polities, with a shared ethnic heritage.
and part of the america-is-rome twaddle posits britain in the role of hellenic greece.
If I am not mistaken, the Moscow as the Third Rome was a slavophile idea meaning that Russia was the seat of the Christianity. Moscow–>constantinople after the Schism–> Moscow after Constantinople fell to the Turks.
“The American empire is looking similar to the Soviet empire at the end. ” The similarities are indeed eerie, but this is more like the USSR circa the late Seventies. Only in its final days of the Eighties did Gorbachev mildly acknowledge the shortcomings of the USSR’s totalitarian system and introduced glasnost. The dying American Empire is a long way from acknowledging its shortcomings or allowing the free exchange of ideas and unfettered speech (which the Soviets never really did, either, although they flirted with the idea). Another analogy you did not mention is to the final stages of the… Read more »
I just finished reading Midnight in Chernobyl and it’s pretty clear that single incident ripped the guts out of the Soviet economy and led to the USSR’s downfall.
I wonder what form America’s version will take?
I’ve been torn on that or Afghanistan as what discredited the regime the most. Afghanistan certainly discredited the military, which was always looked upon favorably. Of course, America has its own Afghanistan and Covid is our Chernobyl.
In the book the author does point out that the Chernobyl incident collapsed the credibility of the Soviet scientific and technical bureaucracy. Those institutions were certainly important pillars in the strength of the Soviet empire.
Covid should have had a similar effect in the West, but it has not. I attribute this to the, “mass formation,” effect described by Professor Desmet. This effect appears to have gripped the minds of at least half the minds of Western populations.
Unfortunately, this formation is concentrated among the managerial, media, and academic upper middle classes.
I think that Covid and Afghanistan are the first solid hits on the regime’ credibility. It will take something larger to start the downfall.
A military disaster such as the loss of one or more aircraft carriers and escort ships in a fight with China and/or a Pearl Harbor type attack on our Pacific bases. Our feeble, inept and woke response will destroy the militaries credibility.
Domestically it could be a Cat 5 hurricane or an earthquake that destroys one or more major cities, the ineffective government response which can’t be covered up does the damage to credibility.
the consequences of the covid response holocaust are only now beginning to be felt. give it another year and fauci will be dead (and not in his bed).
That’s a great analogy between the USSR’s Chernobyl response and the USA’s Covid debacle. Chernobyl revealed more about system failures, and Covid has revealed more about personal failings and weakness, but, yeah, the parallel is very striking.
how did it rip the guts out of the soviet economy?
The total direct losses were estimated as high as $13 billion in 1986 dollars. The USSR’s total defense budget was something like $30-40 billion in those days. During the initial incident they were pulling men and material in from across the Soviet Union. At one point they had a fleet of 80 helicopters dumping all kinds of crap on the reactor core to extinguish the graphite fire and quench the reactivity. Other losses included destroyed and irradiated equipment, irradiated farmland, the city of Pripyat, millions of kilowatts of electricity, relocation costs for those in the exclusion zone, and the ongoing… Read more »
“…there were two Soviet 1500 MW RBMKs in Lithuania that became the target of post-Chernobyl nationalist anger which sparked the protests…”
And once ‘the world’ realizes Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J are American companies…?
thanks for the good reply.
I really enjoy disliking Jay Nordlinger at National Review. On the other hand, he is such a clueless dork that I end up pitying him.
He used to a podcast with Mona Charen and his exaggerated supplication to her was cringeworthy. It was clear to me that she saw him as a pathetic beta orbiter goy.
I’ll say the same thing about Nordlinger as I said about Bob Dole this morning. I didn’t know he was still alive.
All I will say is I had a vision that all of those large fancy estates in the Hamptons become a vacated ghost town
It’s strange thinking it, but there will be a time when all of those houses are vacated and run down like the old southern plantation homes
Or like Detroit where there are trees and weeds growing up through the floorboards of those grande ole mansions
Interesting times for sure
An interesting thing about the explosion of private security since the Cold War is it assumes these private actors will always play by the rules and never work for the enemies of their employer. They should be reading up on how that worked with the Praetorian guards.
If the paymasters of private security personnel can’t pay them with anything of value, or pay them enough to show up for work, they will melt away and defend their own.
Times are good till the money runs out.
How is that working in South Africa? Have the security forces there turned toward robbing the ruling class yet?
been a couple of coups in africa recently, so “yes”.
I think the difference is here we have a different layering of wealth. We have the truly rich and we have a wedding cake of layers down to the somewhat wealthy. There are a lot of layers here covering millions of households and people Not so much in South America. There it’s either you are super rich, average, or poor.
We have yet to go through a shake out that separates the somewhat wealthy from the super rich, but it’s coming.
I live in South America, have traveled widely in it visiting friends (Latinos all) and disagree, South America–particularly Colombia, Perú, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.– has a growing upper middle class who live quite well, as I’ve experienced first hand.
where doesn’t the “upper middle class” live well? south america is a violent shithole, and the economy in argentina is collapsing for about the third time in 20 years. buenos aires has just about the highest level of anti-depressant usage per capita, in the world. and finally, if it is so god damned good down there why does everyone there want to come here?!
I don’t know. How about you write an essay on it and I’ll take a look.
Barnard: I don’t know if the ruling blacks in South Africa hire exclusively black or White or a racial mixture of security guards. The few financially comfortable White South Africans who remain continue to hire black security guards, many of whom conspire to rob, torture, and kill their employers.
Of course, I don’t know how many White South Africans with a solid military background remain in the country, or if it’s legally permissible to hire them. And, even if it is, would they choose to work for the remaining race-blind Whites who’ve gone along with the destruction of their world?
Look at who remains the wealthiest people in South Africa. Those other than Boers and English are Fellow White. The game can be played a long time.
Yep, things are going to go haywire with a million moving parts and divided loyalties and all the rest. People are going to need a lot of money to keep up their private security, and people who think they’re rich will find out they can’t keep up with the payments. Then what?
Going to suck being them. They better have good looking daughters.
Niccolò Machiavelli had a lot to say about condottiere, in addition to praetorians.
The dying empire we should be studying as most closely resembling ours is the British one. The irony isn’t lost on me that the United States played a great role in destroying it after 1945.
zman: It’s a trope of TEOTWAWKI novels that the private security forces hired by either the political or entertainment elite or even the wealthy preppers turn on their employers. It’s always some low-level bureaucrat who ends up proclaiming herself “President” because all those above her ended up dying in the scramble for bolt holes. And the Hollywood actresses found ravished and ruined by the mob because their poorly-paid and socially scorned staff rob the mansion and abandon someone who can no longer provide anything of value. The more optimistic writers choose to depict a split in the military security forces… Read more »
Don’t you feel this scenario is coming though?
Or are we just caught up in our own minds? Might we be the cultists sure that the end is coming?
Hard to say at this point but I’m betting on the former. I’m betting on things falling apart. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. But whatever the case, I don’t want to grow old in Los Angeles. I came here moons ago to have fun. Not to die.
“An interesting thing about the explosion of private security since the Cold War is it assumes these private actors will always play by the rules and never work for the enemies of their employer.”
Much less stick around when the crap really hits the fan.
It is scarcity, I suspect, that will turn private security against the ultra-wealthy. The oligarchs really should be keeping their eyes on their private pilots initially.