Notes: The Monday Taki post is up. This week is a late take on the Biden speech from Hell that is getting the memory hole treatment. Sunday Thoughts is on holiday, but there are new posts behind the green door. SubscribeStar and Substack.
There are a lot of ways people on this side of the great divide describe the difference between one side and the other. The term “red pill”, borrowed from the Matrix movies, is the most popular term, but it has lost much of it meaning. People will talk about their awakening, but the term “woke” is now owned by the crazies and therefore indicates mental illness rather than political awareness. Another popular term is “based” but like “red pill” it has been overused.
These terms generally focus on the race issue, which is more accurately stated as the biology issue or biological realism. The main bridge over the great divide is the acceptance of biological reality with regards to sex, ethnicity and race. People on this side of the great divide accept reality, with regards to the human condition, as it appears and reject the various social constructs of the orthodoxy. This makes sense as it is the most obvious and easiest to grasp.
There is another aspect to the phenomenon of waking up to the reality of the world and choosing to live in the truth. That is the nature of modern society. It takes a while, but people who make the journey to this side of the divide eventually come to figure out that the biology issue is the leaves of the tree. The root of the tree is the vast managerial system that allows a tiny minority to wield power. We do not live in a liberal democracy, but rather in a large imperial corporate state.
A useful example to illustrate the point is this long post in the Claremont Review of Books by Christopher Caldwell. As John Derbyshire has pointed out, Caldwell is a skillful social critic who has a knack for making important insights in such a way that the average reader can grasp them. He is a man who lives within the system even though he is a critic of the system. Unlike most mainstream pundits, he does not spend his days signaling against the people on this side of the divide.
Therein lies the important bit. Despite his ability and willingness to critically analyze the system in which he lives, he remains a man of the system. He is on that side of the great divide, not this one. The tell is the default position. Christopher Caldwell assumes his compatriots are mostly working from good intentions and mostly trying to get things right, even if most are highly partisan. Therefore, he can trust their depiction of events in the Ukraine and build his analysis accordingly.
In the second paragraph, he states, “Since June, thousands of computer-guided artillery rockets have been wreaking havoc behind Russian lines.” People on this side of the great divide who have bothered to follow the war will see this as material placed in the Post and Times by military contractors. The so-called “wonder weapon” narrative has been a running joke among those relying on more trustworthy sources. Even the Ukrainians have started to mock this claim.
Right after the wonder weapon narrative, is the narrative that claims Russia is a gas station run by peasants. “With western European help, Washington has used its control of the choke points of the global marketplace to impoverish Russians, in hopes of punishing Russia.” The sanctions regime has made the world poorer and the Russians have not been spared, but it has been an inconvenience. The claims from the Post and Times about the Russian economy are nonsense.
Noticeably lacking is the perspective of the Russians. The official narrative says that the Russians are reactive cavemen with no ability to think long term. That is what Caldwell assumes to be true, because his friends in the system say it is true. The truth is Russia, China and India are the long term planners. It is the West that wakes up every morning, reacts to what is happening and then gets busy fabricating new narratives so they can win the media war that day.
Because Christopher Caldwell is firmly rooted on the other side of the great divide, his analysis is inevitably controlled by it. Like the people from the movie living in the matrix, he is basing his understanding of the world on a general falsehood. He rests his analysis on a fabricated reality that serves the interests of the system but is no more connected to reality than a science fiction movie. His analysis is true as long as the rules of the system remain unchanged, which is impossible.
Notice also how Caldwell just accepts that the reason Washington has been meddling in Ukraine is they seek to promote democracy. Again, this is a conveniently self-serving claim from the people running foreign policy, but it has no basis in fact. The same people eagerly excluding vast numbers of Americans from the political system are certainly not spreading the hope and joy of democracy. Caldwell assumes the best from his friends in the system, so he accepts their claims.
None of this is to suggest Caldwell is a bad person or that he is stupid. It is that he lives in the false reality of official orthodoxy. On that side of the great divide, these things are true because they are necessary for the current narrative. On this side of the great divide, these things are false because they are false. It is the motivation behind these false narratives that is the starting point for dissident analysis, which results in an entirely different view of the war and the world.
That is what it means to be a dissident. The people who are constantly droning on about reality being a social construct are living in a social construct. Theirs is a world where things are true because the rules of the narrative require them to be true, but once the narrative is no longer operative, the rules change. It is how the people threatened violence against those refusing the Covid vaccine can so easily shift to blaming the whole fiasco on the people who criticized it.
Perhaps the better way to put it is that the last stop on the train that carries people to this side of the great divide is the understanding that the genuine crisis in the modern age is the contradiction between reality and official orthodoxy. To return to the movie trope, freedom only comes from destroying the matrix. There is no reform within it, because there is no reality within it. The myth of the modern age is that the modern age is in anyway attached to the reality of the human condition.
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I hate to say this especially because so many people have praised it, but I did not enjoy CC Age of Entitlement .
I was hoping to learn more about the details of the CR revolution and its valiant opponents. Instead the book is more of an overview of post war America. Going on about macro issues like later presidents?
I didn’t get much out of it. Maybe I had been simmering in the online identitarian stew for too long to extract any utility from the book.
Cogent analysis. The modern world is living in an anticipated utopia – one in which the utopia doesn’t actually exist, and can never exist, but they think that by pretending it does for long enough they will actually usher it in. “On that side of the great divide, these things are true because they are necessary for the current narrative.” Sure, but just to be *completely* rational, let’s not assume that the right is entirely free of narrative building, especially when it comes to the environment, which some people on the right hold as a resource for unrestrained economic rapine… Read more »
Since 2020, I stopped to think about HBD, IQ, race, biology, immigration. Because EVERYTHING which is bad in the west happened because of white “big IQ” men. (yeah, I know, “what about J Propaganda ? My answer : if WP are enough stupid to eat every single time the sick JP, the fault is on the WP) -delocalisations, desindustrialisaton -immigration -wokism -green religion -covid -ukraine 2020 is of course the year of the beginning of the crazy covid story; Since this time, frankly, I don’t give a dam’ about non-white people (black, latinos for you, arabs and africans for us).… Read more »
Je suis totalement avec vous, if memory and translator work. Yep, totally agreed (not sure about the sentence structure).
Our people willfully have been poisoned. Most will die.
It is a holiday here in the States. I spent a sometimes lovely evening and dinner with family and friends. Listening to them was painful, particularly the Normies, who almost certainly would down arsenic if labeled “diversity.” They are ghosts who breathe and visit on holidays, lost causes I suffer as parents of autistic children surely do, but only infrequently. Fortunately.
It is past not giving a damn. Go away, spirit.
Jack: It really is painful watching people one once loved or cared about condemn themselves and their children to civilizational death. I long ago cut loose all relatives other than my husband and sons, and shed my last illusions and remaining few Jane Normal friends in 2008. But my husband keeps in touch with high school friends. Despite acknowledging that everything we’ve warned about or predicted has come to pass over the last decade, they still took the vax, remain as shrinking White minorities in their home town, and plan on travel and cruises over the next 5-10 years. They… Read more »
Any clown who still denies the existence of the Deep State would do well to read this excellent piece.
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/dominique-strauss-kahn-revisited/
Yes, it is quite an extraordinary account. A long, convuluted and compelling case study.
[…] ZMan pulls it all together. […]
Calling it now:
9/11 false flag incident. Media proclaims PedoJoe to be prescient about the MAGA danger, and that Something Must Be Done. Differently Abled Enabling Acts signed some time afterward.
This is the kind of crazy talk that unfortunately sounds more plausible daily
The constant paranoia on the DR about false flag attacks is irritating.
The regime doesnt need a false flag It can do anything it wants to you anyway, because what are you going to do about it?
Oh thats right, anyone who dares fights back is accused of being a false-flag agent.
“anyone who dares fights back”
Translated: Anyone who publicly advocates other people doing stupid and completely counterproductive things.
Put a kick me sign on your back. Then hand over your female family members to the joggers for “servicing” to convince everyone how servile you are
That way nobody would ever mistake you for a “fed” or a “false flag agent”. The you can spend the rest of your life doing “productive” activities.
which bush? W or HW?
Sorry man, I wish I could be strong like you but I just ain’t built to be a real internet tough guy – too afraid of the carpal tunnel from all the furious typing.
I know fedposts would keep my family safe from negros and then quickly lead us to victory, but typing little anonymous messages about the violent things other people should definitely do is simply too manly for me.
We’ve all got our limitations I guess
look sand lot , a little time reading history might assuage your frustration
Maybe. Or maybe they try to pull one off and it blows up in their faces. History repeating first as tragedy then as farce. We’re doo for a really big farce. Or maybe our side is affected by same the same social rot and ennui that has come to dominate Western cultures. Such that we crave some apocalypse that will never come. To the last point, the last decade or so has seen cycles if that hitting various subcultures on a rolling basis. Goldbugs have been anxiously awaiting the crack up boom they think imminent. Then the political left was… Read more »
I’d have no problem staying plugged-into the Matrix if it just stayed at the 1950s or 1980s versions.
I mean, all mass human relations are a system and all human systems are illusions to one degree or another. The question is whether the matrix loaded is there to spiritually and materially uplift the people or the opposite.
Cypher was a wise man and that steak looked good.
Staying plugged in the 50’s or 80’s matrix would had been nice! There is a now cancelled youtuber, blackpilled, that is now on odysee. He documented the propaganda fed into America’s subconscious during the second half of the XX century by our entertainment industry. It is hard to say that they did not do this intentionally as I remember growing up in the 80’s that I was educated to be not-a-racist by the school system. We were pre-woked but somehow it was not the time to activate the virus. Later around 2008 and after they activated the virus in college… Read more »
Late to the party but first rate post.
Writing this made me also remember how around 2008-10 Netflix acquired a bunch of social issues documentaries that were fed to people by the algorithm. I remember binge watching a few and thinking how bad was America. Not saying we have not had abuse by corporations, but the docs somehow left the impression that America was almost unsalvageable. My closer bookstore was a campus one and it was also stocked always with the famous Howard Zinn’s book. Around 2012 a large collection of history books starting appearing about racial issues and their message was how bad was America the full… Read more »
Reminds me, anyone reading should check out blackpilled’s odysee series on “patcon”. Really wish Z man would check it out too. Amazing amount of research and lesser known but public information on there.
Frequently I find myself going “wait that CAN’T be right?!?” listening to blackpilled, then go verify the information independently… been amazed lots of times.
His “satanic panic” coverage was another such eye opener.
Though I liked the Taki post, I tend not to believe that the Philadelphia Aztec sacrifice screech was a minutely planned thing. A lot of people in D.C. are exactly like characters on “Veep”— we see similar indolent types of certified meritocrats doing the higher-ranking C-suite, academic, and non-profit chicanery nowadays. The White House brainiacs may have gone as far as drawing up a “pros”/“cons” table on a napkin. Some mutated, desperate-to-seem-hip “Dark Brandon” bits of memery may have seeped in. Peggy Noonan used to call this: “They’ve seen the movie, but they’ve never read the book.” In short I… Read more »
I agree, the crazed Biden night rally wasn’t finely crafted to “send a message.” It was an outburst. But all the state’s official outbursts are alike now, and their message is consistent. 2008 is when the media memory-holed the history of Biden. He’s been a famous politician since I was a kid, always known as a rage-addled retard, lashing out at the press, physically threatening individual constituents, barely able to read aloud the scripts from his masters (see the Waco hearings), etc., but then suddenly he was Good Ol’ Grampa Joe. 2008 is also when my famous friends all got… Read more »
The two worst things that happened to us: mass media (news and entertainment), and leisure time. Can’t construct the matrix without the reach, and people can’t afford to live in it if they’re too busy making a living. Interesting how news and entertainment have merged as people have increasingly plugged in. Good/bad news is unsustainable. Reality refuses to not be dealt with eventually.
is *it’s* unsustainable
The big speech the other day—the Vegetative Muppet playing Gary Oldman playing Dracula with blood-dripping ‘Independence’ Hall as his Riefenstahlic backdrop flanked by The New Hybrid USMC/IRS—was simply the announcement that Fascism is now the Regime Reality. Thus, we must fight the Fascists. Whether they are in Eurasia, or Eastasia.
This Dissident side of the Great Divide, how many Divisions does it have? You see, you ask others to risk job, careers, livelihood and now even death or jail for…? No chance of success or survival. Live not by lies? He was sent to a very gentle camp. Dissidents bought down the USSR? Sure, and Blue Jeans will bring down the CCP next. The USSR let the Dissidents live for PR and to have an internal enemy. The USSR was bought down by Casey getting Wall Street to cut the subsidy and the Ruling KGB elites of Russia tried to… Read more »
Your command of history is as poor as your command of English.
At the outset, my opinion regarding all “narratives” is the same, viz., they are false (if not entirely then nearly so) and promulgated for the purpose (again, almost exclusively, but perhaps not entirely, since even a blind pig finds a truffle occasionally) of advancing the interests of the source of the narrative. The only, and I do mean only exception is the Biblical Narrative, which is completely true, honest and worthy of unhesitating acceptance. In sum, God made everything, everything became subject to The Fall and God became man in order to redeem His Creation. On a more mundane level,… Read more »
All humans are imitative beings. We all imitate Our Father. Either Above or Below.
a favourite narrative they spew is that of defending Ukrainian or Israeli borders (but not our own)
theRussians: “a favourite narrative they spew is that of defending Ukrainian or Israeli borders (but not our own)”
Two Hundred Years Together
Chapter One
“From the Beginnings in Khazaria”
– Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
“Anatevka, Anatevka,
Underfed overworked, Anatevka,
Where else could Sabbath be so sweet?”
– Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock, and Joseph Stein
“People on this side of the great divide accept reality, with regards to the human condition, as it appears and reject the various social constructs of the orthodoxy.” This is just a restatement of the eternal problem of human nature described by Plato in the allegory of the cave in “The Republic.” “Society” has always been defined by mythmakers who construct a false or artificial narrative to describe the shadows on the wall of the cave. As Plato points out, it takes a special kind of person to challenge these myths and to seek objective truth, and he who does… Read more »
Your comments bring up the insight expressed so well by Derb and repeated here on occasion that objective truth is quite low on the list of human needs / desires. Most people , most white people included, want and need a moral universe provided to them far more than they want or need objective truths about viral infections, statistical analysis of racial characteristics, or analysis around how much fuel and time it would take to make millions of bodies disappear into smoke. Constructing or adopting such a moral universe should be of first importance to the DR. A form of… Read more »
I have as yet to see any “reliable sources mock the claim” as you claim, Ukrainian or otherwise. There are a ton of fake conservatives pushing for Putin, or least have bought the lie that Russia is winning, all the while having their poor logistics savaged, and being forced to scrape out prisons for more cannon fodder.
Russia is a very long way from winning anything except prizes for stupidity. No one is winning yet, and the outcome will be in doubt for quite some time.
Been to the grocery store lately?
yeah sure, 10% of the Russian army is fighting in the Ukraine, so of course they have been reduced to forming prison units, before they use the other 90% they have in reserve
I want to believe your comment is clever satire, but I suspect it is sincere.
It sounds like Quartermaster is firmly plugged into the Matrix.
I suspect that this is the same “Quartermaster” at Insta-Meme who falsely claimed that Russia was blocking humanitarian corridors. When he was caught in his lie after I surfaced the original source (an interview with a Red Cross functionary), he disappeared and blocked me. Is that you Quartermaster? Go back to Insta where you can swim in your Boomer/CivNat/Russians are Commies/Putin is Hitler World. Say Hi to Stephen Green for me!
Mr. Z, Is there any way to check prior posts from people like this? Without grinding through thread after thread and pressing CTRL F? I want to have an easy way to start ignoring posts like this.
I know there is not a mute function nor do I mind that it is not there.
Quartermaster sprinkles similar pearls of wisdom over at Unz Review in comment threads. And now, he is here. Oh, frabjous joy!
And, Quartermaster? With such provender he endeavors to poison us.
Quartermaster accuses us of misinformation/misunderstanding wrt the current Ukrainian/Russia conflict. Yet all he presents as evidence are a series of gratuitous assertions. Which logically are rebutted by another gratuitous assertion. So here is comes: Russia is winning in all areas and on all fronts. Ukraine is losing.
If Quartermaster were a serious fellow, he point us to his sources such that we might view them and judge for ourselves these sources truthfulness and accuracy, but he doesn’t. This is a tell of an emotional rather than a rationale thought process.
@Compsci
Wow — you actually understood Quartermaster’s original response (above), enough to summarize it in one sentence?
I got bored / confused after the second paragraph of drivel and gave up.
So, good for you.
You insult just about everyone here with that post. Hopefully you’ll never need any help from us and those like us because you’ll get the opposite. How any supposedly neutral observer could say the people of 404 are winning is impossible to believe.
I’m going to be charitable and think that you’re trapped in a Cold War mentality and still equate Communists and Russians. Russia is no longer the Soviet Union and isn’t Communist. Get over that and join the real world. We are the baddies here, at least our rulers and their lackeys are.
Begone redditor. There are marvel trailers to drool over elsewhere
Did you upvote yourself there, buddy?
The term “woke” was a major win for them in the war of rhetoric. “Woke” is a more neutral sounding term, while also being associated roughly with doing good and seeing the world for what it really is. SJW was far more effective as rhetoric, which is why con, inc always hated it and allowed these freaks and weirdos to change the narrative and call themselves “woke” instead of the much more effective SJW. I once listened to Tom Woods argue with someone over the term SJW/Social Justice Warrior. He just could not understand the effectiveness of the term comes… Read more »
Both terms were similarly appropriated. Years ago a couple Tumblr proto-tranny cartoon-politics kids called themselves “social justice warriors,” and it was hilarious because they were sissies, so 4chan & Ron Paul-era Reddit & the non-leftist “skeptic” YouTube gang stole it, to mockingly signify all “cultural” leftists. “Stay woke” is a very old Afro-supremacist saying that became a black Twitter shibboleth. It was stolen twice: first by JQ enthusiasts, next (and forever) by normie colorblinds. Few if any of those currently described by “woke” have ever used the term themselves, except to make fun of normie conservative rhetoric. The hoteps still… Read more »
“I think we should insult every asshole individually.” Online, we don’t know anything about them, individually. Few epithets the right ever had was as effective as SJW. People always want excuses for why we can’t use this effective rhetoric. Be it because it’s “stale” or “overused” or because there is some historic reason it doesn’t apply or some bullshit. If any of this were true, “Nazi” as an epithet would have fallen out of use int he US decades ago. But it is EXTREMELY effective rhetoric. Just watch, they’re going to make us stop using “groomer” too. It’s too effective… Read more »
NPC was effective but it oddly seemed to fall by the wayside. That was one term that seemed to really rustle their jimmies in a major way.
You can say “Wokie” to be more demeaning. It’s close to a Wookie, and the speech of both is equally unintelligible.
“Woke” just makes them sound illiterate, which is indeed the case for a rather large percentage of them.
It is basically a lift from ebonicspeak. More need not be said.
I always understood “woke” as derogatory. Maybe because I associate it with the PC left.
And now the US is sending the latest “wonder weapon” to Ukraine in the form of VAMPIRE kits to retrofit pickup trucks:
https://news.yahoo.com/the-us-is-sending-vampire-kits-to-ukraine-heres-how-they-work-090010937.html
Just in time for Halloween along with all the pumpkin spice products!
Boy do they love their acronyms!! V.A.M.P.I.R.E. Next year they’ll deliver the C.U.C.K.O.L.D. and F.A.G.G.O.T.
The neatest thing about the truck mounted Vampire “wonder weapon” is that now literally every pickup in Ukraine will now have to be immediately targeted and destroyed by Russians just to be on the safe side.
The US just made every civilian owned pickup truck a legitimate war target. Nice job, US.
You think Zelensky wants LESS dead Ukranians? All his cousins are already back in Tel Aviv or Manhattan as of the beggining of the war. More dead slav civilians is a winner for him personally and tribally.
An army that is reduced to using pickups as weapons carriers is a defeated army.
The thing is the goal is not to win. Its to kill as many russians as possible. If every young man in the Ukraine is killed doing this, who cares its still a win if the western pols get to keep the media campaign up long enough that they can entrench the sanctions for ever against their own populations. Zelensky, Blinken, Borrel, Scholz, Truss and the rest just want a media narrative. That they are prepared to throw hundres of thousands of young men to their death means nothing at all to them. These men are not humans, and do… Read more »
If the Ukies are selling all this stuff off as fast as they recieve it, then pickup bed mounted missile launchers could be the new truck nuts. If a gigantic Ford F150 isn’t enough to tell the world that you’re insecure about yourself, add a missile launcher!
So, a really souped-up Somali “technical”. But really expensive, so there will be plenty of grift to spread around, thereby keeping everybody happy.
Caldwell is in many ways like the late Mikhail Gorbachev. He can see that the system is in trouble, and he can even more or less see why, but his answers are still rooted in belief in the system, so they will do nothing to solve the problem. Just as Gorbachev could not solve the systemic problems of the USSR, because the system was the problem, so too Caldwell and “democracy”. That being said, he’s better than 95% of the pundits out there, and he doesn’t hate or despise his countrymen. That’s something.
Caldwell: It would be foolish to bet against the United States, a mighty global hegemon with a military budget 12 times Russia’s. A lot of things seem unbeatable, until they’re not. I’ve learned with ranching that every bit of fence, every corral panel, every barn wall only works because the animals believe it will. Most materials short of reinforced concrete are tissue paper to a 2,000 pound bull that decides it doesn’t believe in the power of the barrier any more. The US is a “mighty global hegemon” because nations believe it is. Russia, China, India, Brazil … their belief… Read more »
The military budget comparison is where you see Caldwell does not go outside much. What are we really getting for that enormous military budget? According to the military, we are now running below critical levels of basic military stocks. In other words, those budget numbers are as divorced from reality as everything else.
CBS (I know, I know) reported, and then retracted, that of the funds allocated “to fund Ukraine,” only about thirty percent is used to do so. The DOD and State are cash cows for the Ruling Class and their hired hands in politics. Some have floated the idea that the Ukraine war is a cash cow intended to deplete current material and force new material to be built. That’s far too generous.
In a post behind the green door, I talked about the fact that Ukraine is just a massive money laundering operation. Much of the financial aid is siphoned off by the Zelenskey regime into foreign accounts. Some of it returns to benefactors in the Unites States through contracts with NGO and private consultants. How much flows back into the pockets of Washington insiders is hard to know, but you can be sure the Kerry family, the Clinton family, the Paul Ryan family, the McConnell family and so on are getting their beaks wet. Then you have the arms transfers. Read… Read more »
I did read somewhere that M113 APCs were spotted in the early stage of the new offensive but I’m sure they are no longer in service after trying to cross open territory. They’ve been obsolete for 30 years and are aluminum death traps. If I were an Ukie Volksturm I’d go ahead and kill myself before I rode one into battle.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside-the-overdose-crisis-sweeping-fort-bragg-1396298/
Hello zman. Your comment “triggered” me (in a good way). If you have some time you may want to peruse the article (it was published only yesterday). It’s the first good thing I’ve seen in Rolling Stone for many years, and it shows the moral vacuum that is now in place in our Army; a problem that no amount of “military budget” can overcome.
When you’re paying $400 for a hammer. $1T doesn’t go very far.
I also raise cattle. In my opinion, cattle stay behind a fence because they choose to do so. I’ve found that when soybeans are growing outside the fence, or there is more green grass on the other side, particularly in late March and early April, they may choose not to stay behind my fence. If they actually believe they have to stay inside the barrier, they certainly can change that belief on a dime. You are absolutely right that there is no barrier we can construct to force them to stay inside the fence. I recently had a steer bust… Read more »
This is what I have seen referred to as a ‘1905 Moment’. The Russian Empire looked invincible to its dissidents until it made the mistake of assuming that the Japanese were like all the other Asians they were used to fighting. The Japanese obliterated and humiliated a Russian navy sent to attack them. A revolt in Russia that year failed, but the aura of invincibility was shattering and nature took her course.
Watching livestock farming videos I always struck with the off hand way the guys described training animals to the fence while young.
To the point that you can then mostly keep cattle in with a few strands of electrified fence for their entire life.
As you cast off the lies, you start to see how much of the “reality” has been to train you to the wire.
Persuading other people to see this, is far from easy.
Besides the scam and huge budgets – I once saw first hand what a Naval subcontractor did and was worth ( thousands of dollars a day to sit and get drunk starting at 10 am)- you also have to question the efficacy of the materials produced. How do you beat low tech? High tech – what we certainly have in the GAE. However, how do you beat high tech? Low tech. See Russian artillery.
There is a concept called Purchasing Power Parity that puts to lie the budget assumptions used to prove just how we must have a better military because we spend so much more than anyone else, particularly Russia. Look at the bang-for-the-buck numbers. Compare the cost of GAE frontline weapons systems compared to Russia or China. They do so much more with their weapons procurement than the GAE does. GDP is an outmoded measure of economic size now too. Ask how much of the GAE GDP is FIRE based compared to actual making things. I could go on but it would… Read more »
The same goes for public education spending….
This was tremendous post and very insightful. Thank you. I don’t have much to add but I would like to know which of these two excellent points are the more important, if they are not to be viewed in tandem: ” We do not live in a liberal democracy, but rather in a large imperial corporate state.” and ” It is how the people threatened violence against those refusing the Covid vaccine can so easily shift to blaming the whole fiasco on the people who criticized it.” To the first, for all the legitimate criticism of democracy and the idiocy… Read more »
The reason their beliefs shift so easily is because they don’t remember anything beyond a couple weeks. Even the Obama administration feels like ancient history nowadays.
“None of this is to suggest Caldwell is a bad person or that he is stupid. It is that he lives in the false reality of official orthodoxy“ I must admit the above statement is hard for me to understand. Perhaps a better definition of “stupid” is in order or an explanation of intelligence more nuanced to include folks like Caldwell. I sense you like/respect the guy, but in the end “he is one of them”, and worse an “effective” ally of “them”—especially if he can elicit your grudging admiration. If he is one of them, he can not be… Read more »
Disappointing Caldwell piece from the author of an essential book, “The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.” He doesn’t even mention the key factor in the war: Russia’s 6,000 nuclear weapons.
Caldwell’s book is an impressive accomplishment and definitely worth reading. While it perhaps hedges its bets somewhat from our perspective, it is highly effective in shaking Normie out of his complacency. The argument that the Civil Rights Act is the real constitution is like a slap to the face to the average Griller, one that they cannot easily dismiss, since his arguments are so obviously correct. (The other particularly bitter pill in Caldwell’s book is that his observation that we have nothing to show for our $30T in debt – that the money went to delay, not prevent just delay,… Read more »
From Caldwell: Even those who dismiss this view will agree that the United States has made itself a central player in the conflict. It is pursuing a three-pronged strategy to defeat Russia through every means short of entering the war—which, of course, raises the risk that the United States will enter the war By every established norm of war, the US *has* entered the war. It has committed countless acts of war against Russia over the past several months. The US is playing a game that’s intellectually on par with two siblings bickering in the back seat with one saying… Read more »
Eventually, poking the bear will/must have consequences. The Russian people will not put up for losing their boys in a war prolonged by those who have none of their boys at risk. Look for preemptive strikes against the supply lines and across borders if necessary. Right now, I expect Putin waits on a cold winter and bets on the lack of resolve of Europe. But if this fight lasts into a new Spring all bets are off.
US did the same thing in civil war, WWI, and WWII… joining war covertly (by retard standards) then waiting for other side to get sick of it. Then… OH NO (Fort Sumpter / Lusitania / Pearl Harbor), it’s a day of infamy! How could anyone be so bloodthirsty to do this to a totally peaceful noncombatant like us?!? Why does everyone keep attacking us all over the world for NO reason???? Thanks to the people who run most of it, US government strategy is literally to cry out as it strikes you. Same thing now. Thank God Putin seems content… Read more »
One of the funniest things I’ve read out of the regime press is some German bureaucrat’s reaction a couple weeks ago when the Russians shut off Nordstream yet again. “How dare Russia use gas as a weapon!” Yesterday: GAE imposes what they insist will be crippling economic sanctions on Russia and starts confiscating the property of private Russian citizens abroad. That’s fine. Today: Russia turns off the gas. Reeeeeeeee!!! It is like Severian says, they really do live in Twitter and can’t imagine that their words have real world consequences. They owned the Russians on Twitter with their propaganda and… Read more »
I used to wonder what was taking Russia so lo.g to turn off the tap. But I think I get it:
Step 1 – threaten to turn off gas and make supplies spotty to drive up prices
Step 2 – continue to sell at higher prices when impact of shut-off not that great (e.g., weather still relatively warm so not peak demand)
Step 3 – shut off at peak demand foe maximum impact
Step 4 – win
Notice how this does NOT track the US Underpants Gnome planning.
A paroled Negro male kidnapped, assaulted, and evidently murdered a pretty White heiress in Memphis. Events like this were once politically very useful.
How dare she be White and privileged!
And not too bright and/or way too woke. . She was jogging alone at 4:30 AM in Memphis.
‘She was….in Memphis’ would suffice
Marc Cohn delenda est
Why in God’s name would anyone want to do anything at 4:30 AM?
A jogger did that, I assumed it was some white dude in a MAGA hat, wrong again, oh well
Where was Jussie Smollett at the time?
Jussie doesn’t swing that way.
Z man astutely mentioned in a gab post that the real power of the media is to ignore. Case in point here. If it wasn’t in the media then it didn’t happen, right? Just like how any white people shot by police doesn’t ever happen either…
And yet, if she’d called the police just before the kidnapping, she’d be called a racist “Karen” for daring to assume that the dusky driver posed a threat.
Of course, if she’d been a true racist (aka race realist), she wouldn’t have been jogging near diversity at all.
And if you intervened in the attack and killed the jogger youd be jogging your way right to life in prison. People now know this and thus we see the headlines about how no one intervened when a white woman is raped or beaten on a crowded subway car or a public street in broad daylight. Stopping black crime would be a capital crime if they had their way, nearly is already.
I know a lot of people quite high in the power structure. Not the very top, but people who rub elbows with the soros’ , clinton, etc.
They really do think they are saving the world. Generally nice people. Just completely incapable of taking off their blinders. Also, their social worlds are so enmeshed with their place in the structure that they would have to give up all their friends if they took a step.away from it.
My guess is even soros’ think they are doing good.
Soros knows exactly what he’s doing, he hates us and wants us dead, don’t believe all that BS about the open society. he is 100% evil
To them “good” means only “something that I prefer” and it has no transcendent external meaning… because nothing has or can have any transcendent external meaning to them.
They prefer what is properly called evil so they refer to evil as “good”
Therefore yes, they absolutely think they are doing “good” which is only to say, yes they are evil people doing evil things on purpose.
Hank Williams said it best:
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
It reminds me of some studies I read about that were done after the end of the Vietnam War. One result was that working class (non-credentialed) were less likely to support the war because the white-collars (credentialed) had their personal identities more bound up in support of the system. Their success validated the system. If the system was wrong in some fundamental way, it reflected badly on them. If our “people quite high in the power structure” turn away from facing reality because it gives them the feel-bads, then our deterioration into a failed state is 100% certain. Long term… Read more »
I agree with Anon’s assessment. So many of us on the DR ascribe a malevolent motive to what is being done by the DC “intelligentsia.” They really are just one big clique who hang around with each other (both liberals and “conservatives” alike) and go to the same events, etc etc. I describe above the “newer” and “middle management” folks, and some of the “senior VP” level people (to be translated into a GS-13 or similar). But really it’s the “people at the tippy top” who know exactly what they are doing and are knowlingly malevolent. The rest of them… Read more »
Analyzing their motives misses the point. It is unimportant to me whether *they* think they are doing good. I hold to my standard of good and evil, not theirs. They are doing evil because my belief system says they are doing evil. Their good intentions are irrelevant.
Read somewhere that the $20 billion in gas Russia sells to Germany generates $2 TRILLION in German economic activity.
Boy, I sure am glad the US isn’t so stupid as to rely on hostile peer competitors for our critical infrastructure and wealth generating parts.
(Except for electronics, rare earth metals, basic medicines/pharmaceuticals, etc.)
The Germans and most countries in Europe are working hard to avoid power cuts this winter, if the weather is mild, we will be ok, the Germans are close to having enough gas for the winter, but its not really the power cuts that matter, the real issue is the price they pay for energy in the long term, a lot of the German economy won’t work if energy is expensive. this winter is just the start of a slow grind. there was a large anti government protest in Prague a few days ago, I expect to see more of… Read more »
I keep reading stories in the European media about having a enough gas to survive the winter, but the math never adds up. Losing 55% of its supply is going to mean someone is not getting natural gas. Sure, there is always some percentage of usage that is optional. If we pretend that 20% of gas consumption was frivolous, that still leaves a massive shortfall. Those storage tanks they keep crowing about are there to pick up for peak demand when the normal flow of gas is not enough to meet the demand. Well, let’s assume the normal flow of… Read more »
Well, if the Euro’s take a lesson from US actions during Covid, they keep the population fed and warm—by closing manufacturing—and print money to pay the people who are paying through the nose for the remaining (scarce) supplies. Hence kicking the can down the road.
I think this is what they have planned. The trouble is they cannot blame Covid. Locking down the economy because of a pointless war against essential vendors is a tough sell. Then again, maybe they just pretend Covid is back. It is not as if they are opposed to lying.
Accounting for Erdogan activating sleepers and wondering how robust Germany’s infrastructure is in the face of sabotage.
(((They)))Live:
Spot on.
The “it’s going to be cold!” stories get the headlines, but the real impact of losing Russian petroleum is the economic squeeze, which is going to be enormous.
The Russian’s have settled into losing their Starbucks and their McDonalds; they haven’t even switched to a “war economy” where everything industrial gets retooled for weapons of war.
Assuming this isn’t all Zerohedge sky-is-falling rhetoric, Europeans are about to get wrecked.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1566773878055125000
Expect more stories like this
This I don’t get. What possible reason do you have to believe this?
They are doing everything they can to ensure power cuts.
They intend to destroy their industries and produce a depression that will make the 20s look tame in comparison.
(((They))) Live: I don’t know what numbers or type of math you are using, but every source I’ve read indicates that not only will individual Germans face a serious lack of heat this winter, but German industry as well is facing a catastrophe due to cost of raw materials and energy. They’re shutting down most of their aluminum plants. They are deliberately committing economic suicide as a sacrifice to Gaia. While astronomical energy prices are going to be a problem for everyone, so too will power cuts be – particularly for the older White Germans. I highly doubt they’ll remotely… Read more »
A simple and clear post getting at the heart of the matter. One of your best!
Yes, as things worsen, more and more will make the journey to the dissident side of the divide. And as long as we remain in the slow slide into the ditch, this progress will be slow but relentless. But there will never be a point where a critical mass arises and votes our way out of the mess we’re in. We have long passed the tipping point for eventual collapse, and the only unknown is when. And so, it’s counterproductive to endlessly study the problem and catalog the myriad of ways that things are going to shit. The time is… Read more »
I hadn’t thought about disbelief in mainstream media as being a part of the journey over the Great Divide. Even in the 80s, I remember bumper stickers saying , “I don’t believe the [Washington] Post.” But I guess even those people who put the bumper stickers on didn’t think that the Post was outright lying, although it often was. Now I just don’t pay attention to mainstream media, except when I am subjected to it while with relatives. In that case, I just assume that what’s being said is probably untrue. I try to base my opinions on sources that… Read more »
I like VDH, but you are correct. When you’ve heard it all before—and rejected such CivNat argument as VDH makes—then you turn it off and spend your time elsewhere. Why argue anything when you can not agree on the premises?
I fully realize that I am a boring “one trick” pony (HBD science) but In these type of discussions I immediately jump to the falsity of “equality” and if that is rejected, then there really is no discussion/argument/agreement to be had and we are wasting our time talking past each other.
Thanks for your reply. On reflecting on the situation, I think the main attitudinal change that I have had towards the media is that now I simply regard it as the propaganda ministry of the Deep State/elite or however you may choose to phrase it. Some of what it’s saying may, in fact, be true, but it’s so buried in a Deep State framed narrative that it isn’t worth trying to tease out the truth. If one has the patience, I suppose one could read, watch and listen to mainstream media with the objective of trying to see what is… Read more »
About once a week I knock something off my list of things to read, listen to, etc. I cut TV off in one slice many years ago because it was all too dumb; I’ve only pirated three TV shows during this century. Circa Floyd I lost ~75% of my “neutral” internet consumption to a “zero tolerance for ‘wokeness'” policy—and now ever more of the remainder to “near-zero tolerance for anything that reminds me of TV.” I lost VDH a couple years ago. Derbyshire finally earned his way out this week. I gave him something like ten strikes, because he’d earned… Read more »
The destruction of TV and the media control factory would be the single largest improvement that could be made to society.
It stands head and shoulders above any other lever of tyranny, as it is invisible to 95% of people even as they get beaten in the face with it every day.
Chefs kiss!
Great post. I hear the race thing but that’s a quick way to turn people away from seeing reality. The Biden speech, Russia war, and Covidianism are our best levers to steer conversation and ideas.
No, it would appear that you are not hearing the race thing.
The “race thing” can have a way of revealing just what destruction our betters are bringing upon us. I suppose we could ask that woman’s family in Memphis? Perhaps they like many other normies they may still remain blind to the cause of what is happening to them but even if this family does not grasp the reason for the tragedy these kind of violent incidents, either black on black or black on white are happening daily now with black populations in all major cities where they have a presence. Than race thing can wake up some whites to their… Read more »
Keep on grilling and vote that red wave.
Damn fools thinking that good people voting will help, certainly good people NOT voting is what will help. The system really wants candidates like Blake Masters to win AND they want Trump to win which is why they never act against him.
Those on this side of the great divide have plenty of diversity of thought but or thing in common – a commitment to finding objective truth. We should call ourselves Radical Realists
The term “objective truth” irritates me. There is no such thing as “objective” truth. There is only the truth. Anything else is nonsense.
True, Tired. It’s like “true facts”. Tautology
Usually I find something to quibble with or something to elaborate on. This time I can’t. Beautiful post.
I’ve never heard of Rod Thomson, but he actually has a plan for dealing with the managerial state. It’s a ruthless plan…
https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/03/its-the-midnight-hour-saving-america-now-requires-ruthless-offense/
I’ll hasten to add that the only way to get this plan implemented is to provoke one hell of a civil conflict. And I doubt Republicans have the stomach for confronting lefty’s street gangs.
Leftist street gangs were getting wrecked regularly before defensive right wing “street gangs” started catching completely made up federal cases at Charlottesville and after. The proud boys were always kind of homo and they were absolutely embarrassing antifa anywhere and everywhere. Probably why Gavin McInnes has been disappeared.
Have you SEEN antifa? They are not fighters, they are professional plantiffs and prosecution witnesses for the state. There job is to be such utterly contemptible corporate toadies that they eventually get punched and then you get prosecuted by the system for the punch.
His plan is to keep trusting the people who exist to prevent organized opposition to the system. A Republican victor in November will be the death knell for the country.
The death knell for the country occurred in 1964. It has been a slow-motion train wreck ever since.
What’s interesting about that article is that people on the other side of the divide are actually talking about demolishing the managerial state. At the moment it’s just talk, but the right kind of talk.
No… uh… everything would be great now if only no one on the right would vote and then Biden would win and the democrats would control congress. Not like last time when too many people voted and as a result Biden won and the democrats controlled congress.
I think what we really need is for the Republican Congress to conjure an army of vampires, ok? but *good* vampires, who will terrify the FBI and ATF into acting in the best interests of We The People. We are far past the point where normal politics can do any good; only an army of undead working toward the goal of limited government modeled after what the Founders wanted, or what we think they wanted after 1865, can offer any hope for us now.
Good Lord – the comment section there… Going from here to there is like trading in your Porsche for a Yugo.
that caldwell essay was an insult to my …to everything. The first paragraph bowing to the alphabet people was just too much this early in the morning as I’m still trying to process the stabbings in Saskatchewan that are likely due to climate change
When I read the Caldwell essay, a difficult task, my conclusion was that he’s either a well educated nitwit, or an operative for the bad guys…Anyone who takes such obvious propaganda at face value is just not very intelligent…