For generations, there has been a debate outside of progressive circles about the self-awareness of the people in progressives politics. Conservatives have held onto the belief that the people spouting progressive claims know that what they are saying is nonsense, but they see advantage in supporting the current fads. This recent Paul Gottfried post is a good example. He thinks the FBI is simply making an alliance of convenience with the crazies.
Outside of conservative circles, there are those who think the people telling us their pronouns really do think their genitals are imaginary. It is not an act in order to gain some advantage, but a genuine belief. They may not entirely understand what it is they claim to belief, but they believe it, nonetheless. The woman claiming her small child is another sex may be motivated by a desire for attention, but her determination to mutilate her child is driven by belief.
We have a bit of a test case in the Brazil unrest. The crazies have hated Bolsonaro since he first turned up on the scene. At first, they hated him because he opposed the left-wing Lula da Silva. Now they hate him because he was nice to Trump, which made him Hitler Junior. Now they are comparing the recent riots to the patriotic protests following the 2020 election. They seem to think this is proof that both Trump and Bolsonaro are enemies of our democracy!
The thing is, Lula is clearly worse for the American regime than Bolsonaro. A few minutes looking at his career makes that clear. When he was in office, he was not very friendly toward America, preferring to align with China and Russia. He now promises to push ahead with BRICS, which has become a vehicle for Russia and China to counter the Global American Empire. Brazil and Russia are about to ink an important trade deal now that Lula is officially in office.
From the perspective of the American regime, Lula is a problem. Brazil is a big and important country in the Western hemisphere. They have a great deal of influence over the rest of South America. Having them move from the American camp to the Russian camp should be viewed as a catastrophe. It opens the door for both Russia and China to forge tries with other countries in America’s backyard. Despite this, the media is cheering the ascent of Lula over Bolsonaro.
Another good test case is the Russia collusion story. To normal people, the claims from the Clinton people were obvious nonsense. Strip away the heated rhetoric and what they were saying is that the Russians used some form of mind control to cause people to vote for Trump. If that were true, the Russians would have used this ability to convince the media that Trump was a great guy. The whole thing was ridiculous, but the media acted as if they believed every bit of it.
This exchange between Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald is telling. Greenwald links to a study that claims the Russians do not have a mind control device. To his credit, Greenwald has made this point for years. Taibbi, on the other hand, chimes in with the claim that the media simply got it wrong. This suggests there was a reason to think that the Russians had the mind control device. In other words, Taibbi thinks it is reasonable to think such a device exists.
Of course, the ongoing lunacy in Western media about the war in Ukraine offers a great look into this topic. Every day we see stories in Western media about how the Ukrainians are winning the war. Then there are the stories about how Russia is ready to collapse at any minute. Are the people writing these tall tales liars? Do they really believe what they are writing? Are they just vessels being filled by lairs or true believers in the content creation system?
Here is a story quoting former General Ben Hodges, who claims the Ukrainians will conquer Crimea by this summer. Then they quote someone named Matthew Schmidt, who is the director of international affairs at the University of New Haven. He claims that Hodges is a bit optimistic, but with the right strategy, the Ukrainians could maybe be in Moscow by Christmas. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but his claims are so absurd that one has to wonder if he is taking drugs.
Now, one can dismiss the guy working at a fifth tier state college as nothing more than an attention seeker. The former general is another matter. Ben Hodges was the commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe. He not only should understand the realities of war, but also be informed about what is happening. For example, he would have to know that the Ukrainian army is about to collapse in northern Donbas after a long and foolish defense of the city of Bakhmut.
If the former general lying? Does he believe what he is saying? Has he simply gone insane or taken up drug use? How about the people creating the content? Can any of them use the internet and check to see if any of these claims are true? A few minutes on-line would show them that Sevastopol is a major Russian naval base. Without a navy, Ukraine has no chance to take that port, thus making it impossible to conquer Crimea or even make an assault on it.
Like the conspiracy theories about Trump or the Russians and their mind control devices, the Ukraine war content in the media is easily disproved nonsense, but none of it is ever questioned by the media. Is this because they know it is all lies, but it serves the interests of their masters or do they believe it? Why is there no one in these media organizations asking basic questions? The unanimity in the media strongly suggests they are a hive of true believers.
This may sound academic, but it is an important question. If these people are simply craven liars, then they are open to reason. If on the other hand, they are true believers, then they are beyond reason. The former can be set straight and convinced that their interests lie in the truth. The latter can never be convinced to accept reality. A society run by true believers can only be reformed by first removing the believers. That is not a facts and reason problem. That is a survival problem.
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This image is the final word on what “progressives” believe:
https://imgur.com/a/2QXat4W
“Directly in front of me was a tsigani – a gypsy – with a hand-lettered begging sign.” Man, I kid you not, I saw the exact same woman last week! I live in one of the small cities (on Interstate 20) about 5 hours east of Dallas. I was in the local Wal-Mart last Tuesday and this little lady (19 to 23 years old) comes up to me with a hand lettered sign (written on a 5 x 7 card) and sticks it in front of me while I’m looking at a bottle of Vitamin C. At first my brain… Read more »
Sorry for this, but I was responding to a post written by 3g4me, way down the thread. Read in context my comment makes way more sense; I don’t know how my comment ended up at this point in the conversation. Derp
Strike Three: With all due respect, you SHOULD hate her – and I guarantee she’s not a lady, and if she actually has a baby and it is actually hungry, it is because she has deliberately not fed it to make it cry to gain sympathy from gullible Whites. Gypsies have operated this way for centuries, and have it down to an art. She traveled thousands of miles to deliberately and consciously swindle you, and other White people, who have no shared history or genetics or culture with her. She is the very definition of ‘alien.’ Next time you see… Read more »
I live in Boston for 6 years in my early 20s. I was making a good living, especially for a young, single guy. I felt very blessed and appreciative so I was often charitable with my money. I would often hand money to pan handlers. It all came to a stop when I had my awakening moment. I had just gone to dinner with my GF at the time. I took her to a nice Italian place called Panera in Copley. I got myself a chicken parm plate. It was absolutely huge, and it was delicious. My stomach was acting… Read more »
Years ago I volunteered at a shelter. Helped cook and serve meals every Tuesday for 6 months or so. I’d say about 90% of the people who came through, you’d see them for a couple of weeks, they seemed ashamed to be taking help. Whatever their problems, they seemed decent. 10% were regulars. They had entitled attitudes, made scenes, etc. You’d hear X got arrested, Y OD’d— things like that. I realized everybody would be better off if that 10% were allowed to self destruct and die. They’d be out of their misery, the burden would be off of society.… Read more »
Jeebus T.F. Xist.
I’m a worldly man. I travel..A LOT.
This is new to me.
Daily reminder: Despair is a sin.
Sorry, Z-crowd, I made an overlong comment re yesterday’s about men & women while falling asleep.
We’re expecting lifetime contracts for what used to be shorter arrangements.
We live so long now, when people died much earlier and more often- a spouse, a parent, children; kids started working, marrying, and participating much earlier, and olders worked/participated until they died.
We arrange expectations on a frame that no longer exists.
Either God, or evolution, or both, or something else, take your pick, obviously intended for us to reproduce in our mid teens. Humans somehow went about building a society that discourages that, today to the point of normalizing putting it off until one’s 30s (if ever), when nature intended us to be grandparents.
I wonder how much of “teen angst” is just a reaction to not having any offspring to raise.
Teenager-ness is the immortal American invention. Before some moment that historians of stuff like this tend to place during or after WWII—at the emergence of Frank Sinatra or Elvis, usually—there were children and adults and nothing really in between. Then a consumer demographic was invented, or the image of the meta-alpha (the distant exemplary celebrity-god desired by all girls and imitated by all boys) was inserted into our minds, or…whatever. We describe it many ways, but we all know it’s terrible. It might have emerged from the mass death of draft-age men in the wars, our collective sense/guilt that they… Read more »
Marriage is an eternal pact and you’re an ignoramus spreading immoral falsehoods.
C.S Lewis wrote a great essay called ‘The Inner Ring’ about the dangers of craving acceptance. Most of the brass are being sexually blackmailed. The price of admission to the Globohomo Inner Ring is a willingness to engage in depravity of one kind or another – the casting couch of the establishment – and these people pay that price because they just want IN. It might not be that dramatic in some cases, obviously, but if they won’t engage in it they’ll have to promote it or keep quiet just to get across the drawbridge. H L Mencken understood these… Read more »
Cwenhild: “Most of the brass are being sexually blackmailed. The price of admission to the Globohomo Inner Ring is a willingness to engage in depravity of one kind or another – the casting couch of the establishment – and these people pay that price because they just want IN.”
Some professional Deep State jock-strap-sniffer [whom I had never heard of], editor at both Politico & Foreign Policy magazine, just got Deep-State’d.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/business/media/blake-hounshell-dead.html
I wonder what he knew that was so precious that it cost him his life?
Things that make you go “Hmmmm”. Maybe I’m/we’re too online (it’s been said) but ‘suicide’ in these circles always carries the whiff of Clintonia with it.
Double dipping today: It looks to me like the globohomo regime has an arrangement with Lula, in spite of his prior tenure showing him as more of an ally of Russia. Of course the mediots are dumb enough to call Lula good just because he is the guy on the left, and Bolsonaro bad because he is the guy on the right, so that part didn’t take a lot of work, but the regime itself clearly favors Lula. Like they made a deal with him to get him back into power if he’d play ball on their team now. Globohomo… Read more »
This is why it’s often better to deal with politicians than true believers. The true believer is more than prepared to go down with the ship, but a politician can be bought, or frightened into doing what you wish. True believers are a problem, and if they are, then nothing short of a purge will save the country.
Too many to purge. Just as there are too many of us to purge, or they already would have. The country is not salvageable in its current geographic form, since all these un-purgeable people have to go somewhere. Not to mention the new arrivals.
I agree. The purge will be natural, because they believe things that simply aren’t true, and once the society that allows them to believe those things collapses they will disappear along with it.
This may sound academic, but it is an important question. If these people are simply craven liars, then they are open to reason. If on the other hand, they are true believers, then they are beyond reason.
Sometime craven liars are *not* open to reason. I think it’s been adequately demonstrated that these people are not open to reason and I don’t care if they’re liars or believers. It doesn’t matter a bit to me.
I’m almost tired of saying we’re not going to vote or lawyer our way out of this.
You have to offer them something they want, or threaten them with something they fear. We have neither at the moment.
Actually we, rational Joe’s on the street, pretty much have it all, or enough control of it all; production, food and goods, transport, rail and trail, energy production,…
We simply lack the will to weaponize such.
to me, the big question is: can we wait our way out of it?
It is a survival problem. There was an FT article on the weekend about Musk and Tesla. Quoted was the founder/ceo of Kayak, the travel booking site. The guy said to the effect that “educated and liberal people are Tesla’s customers and they don’t like bullies” re Musk and Twitter and offered the view that Tesla would fail because people like him would no longer buy Teslas. The True Believer lack of self awareness is mindboggling. As is the assertion that people like him are the future for Tesla. You also see this in Hollywood. Companies like Disney face big… Read more »
i think russia and china should be considered a single “front”, and that “reality” be added in there as the fourth front. “human nature” should be considered a synonym for “reality”, in this context.
Another reason that Marvel is dead is that they shot their wad on Thanos and the entire Infinity War story arc.
That story arc is literally Marvel’s version of Ragnarok. Purely in terms of sheer scale there is no where for them to go but down.
Marvel also lacks a new version of the coherent, tightly-mapped 10 year plan that kicked off in 2008 with Iron Man.
Casting is also problematic, as shown by the failure of the new, vibrant Captain America to really catch on.
The cloud position on each new “thing” is made clear, so that clouds know what view to adopt, lest they be mistaken for dirts, their greatest fear. The media are true believers, by design. Curated from the same few indoctrination centers, good obedient clouds who will say whatever they are told to say. Each successive generation more true believer than the previous one. The system more refined now than it has ever been. In the recent past a dissenter might have gotten a job at some local media outpost out in the hinterlands but now even that is becoming impossible.… Read more »
If the western press claims the Ukes are winning then they’rel losing. Simple formula that seems to work flawlessly.
I made the mistake of thinking Russia wasn’t going to invade just because it was the regime media who were saying that they would.
That was Vlad mistake number one. They performed some military actions, build-ups, etc. on the border as a warning to what appeared to be an impending Uke ethnic cleansing campaign againt the Russians in Eastern Ukraine and the west cried “they’re about to invade”, telegraphing what their own plans were. Russia then felt the message was sent and started putting their toys away at which point the Ukes and their western allies began to fire up their own invasion scheme and the rest is history, almost.
the russians should have nuked keef on day#1. problem solved.
I did the same, but apparently the Ukrainian forces were about to start something and Putin felt he had to go now or never. I think that’s why the media was ramping up all the Russia is preparing to attack propaganda, because Ukraine was preparing to attack.
I read in a couple of sources that the Ukraine was about to invade about a week or so after the 24th.
Russia made an error by invading with inadequate forces probably about half the estimates coming from Ukrainians. The feints towards Kiev though were brilliant.
Don’t feel bad I made the very same mistake & also because of the timing; when Putin launched the operation it was the start of the annual “rasputitsa” or wet/rainy season which occurs twice a year & makes it very difficult to move heavy armor & vehicles cross country. This time of the year mechanized divisions are pretty much road bound making them easy meat to ambush & cut up.
For that reason alone I didn’t think Putin would pull the trigger when he did.
Got that one wrong!
Agree with about all of this other than the media being Clouds. The talent you see and read really are stupid, herd-like animals in awe of the Clouds, Dirts allowed to feel good about themselves. Actual Clouds find their media hos amusing.
I have defined Clouds and wannabe Clouds as both being Clouds. Of course the wannabes are the real true believers. Over time, more of the ones at the top become true believers also, it’s inevitable. Hard to say exactly where we are on that timeline. I would say there are some true believers in cabinet level positions these days.
This, exactly. Once the Clouds become actual believers is the dangerous moment. In this instance, they have the ability to take down with them a substantial chunk of humanity.
You’ve looked at Clouds from both sides now, have you?
(I know. I can’t help it. I was born this way.)
I believe the best way to describe the “average” American’s belief system is compulsion. They are trained like Pavlov’s dogs via the media (especially social) to respond to events with certain behavioral conditionings. It is belief, in the sense that it is so deeply ingrained, but the action takes precedence over the idea. The person who says some thing is “racist” is not really interested in the idea of race; they are interested in the performative aspect of labeling something racist and garnering attention. Consider any libs reaction to anything: the performative takes precedence. This is the novel twist of… Read more »
Performatism is what comes after Postmodernism. We might better say it is Postirony.
Meaning has been destroyed via irony, deconstructionism, etc. But, people still want meaning, so they find something that they can DO. They might not start out doing it sincerely, but it grows upon them to become more sincere.
Examples. Someone might start out going to church as an antidote to contemporary madness, even though they don’t believe it at all. Latter they could become more of a believer. Or people might latch onto other system-provided offerings such as Covid or BLM.
Miles Bron says “hello” 😛
There is no downside to being wrong in the “right” way, and nothing but trouble for someone who is right in the “wrong” way. It’s an easy call for any cloud bugmen.
And it seems that a high percentage of Grillers make the exact same call.
That is how Pavlov trained his dogs. The consistency of no push back for liberal performance, with the bonus of attention, is what encourages it.That is my point – the conditioning is consistent and operant. Flipside for anyone who performs conservatively – negative feedback. This is not an accident. It always requires external movement to excite internal states. This is one of the novelties of the modern era. The performance is the conditioning, and it is not accidental or schizoid.
Remarks on Lula/Brazil/Russia by Zman here remind me of this:
https://www.indianpunchline.com/with-eye-on-iran-netanyahu-wades-into-ukraine-war/
Is nobody in the GAE power structure concerned that Israel – “Our Greatest Ally” (TM) – is sidling worriedly away from the Brandon regime? Israel has spies everywhere. Do they know something we don’t? Perhaps related to Russia real capabilities and intentions? Israel moving its chips into Russia’s basket should be a huge red flag.
If I remember right the Russians have agreed with Israel that they won’t sell the S400 anti aircraft system to Iran. thats why Israel hasn’t really helped the Ukrainians. They also need to keep Russia on side with regard to Syria
But the Russians have been sharing tech with Iran in return for drones
Try to explain to the average Normie that their Greatest Ally more or less supports Russia and opposes sanctions. They simply cannot process it. For shits and giggles, some congresscritter should introduce legislation that condemns all nations opposed to sanctions except for Israel. It would pass overwhelmingly.
This relates directly to yesterday’s “Andrew Tate” (whose dad was CIA, by the way.) Shopenhauer tells us that dissimulation is natural to women because they are the weaker sex. That, to ask them not to use a looser grasp of factual realities is like asking an animal not to use whatever natural defenses it possesses. They see it as their right. The breathless people in the system were raised in the increasingly feminized school systems of the late 80’s and beyond. Their neural pathways and mental habits were molded to be socially sensitive, politically conscious, educated to a different work… Read more »
“Social Security ended kids as our retirement plan”
—
More like it obfuscated it. The boomers didn’t have enough kids so especially the late ones (and any Whites beyond) will be dependent on an army of dusky hordes who hate them for their old age survival.
“He [Hodges] not only should understand the realities of war, but also be informed about what is happening.” This genuinely cracked me up in regards to General Hodges. I looked up his service record and it indicates someone who went out of his way to avoid commanding combat units, except when he need to get another rung on promotion. Apparently his aptitudes were strongest in planning and operations, but he ironically saw more combat as a general than most generals in living memory. The guy was even wounded in a terrorist attack. Nah, it’s not logical to assume this dude… Read more »
[…] The Survival Problem […]
I am 100% in the camp that these people are true believers. A real world example is a friend of mine’s wife…. She’s a leftist and an Irish immigrant who arrived here in the 80s. She’s close to 60 now, but she looks like the typical leftist. Fat, shaved head, gross all around – and the one kid they had became trans gender at age 20. She is a super covidian, and one of those people who always had to let everyone know she got her shots. (I think she has gotten 4 so far). Anyway, one day she was… Read more »
” A back and forth ensued until finally she admitted, “ok, I know they don’t really stop the virus, but you should wear one anyway!”.”
Conservatives believe they can argue with religious fanatics such as this one–“here’s my charts and graphs, Inquisitor!”. They are lost, broken people best avoided and, in a perfect world, marginalized or eliminated.
I saw a short vid by a 20-something gal on Gab that made me stand up and salute!
She said that what they’ve done, is woken up the very people who will destroy them.
Arya Vult!
(She ended with, “I’m here for freedom and to f**k sh*t up…and I’m runnin’ out of freedom”)
You should be working on breaking up your wife’s friendship with her. Mind viruses are real.
You mis-read, it’s the wife of his friend.
Tired Citizen: I decided to pick up a box of Sudafed while out today. In everyone’s imaginary free state of Texas, I had to show my driver’s license to buy a generic-brand box of 24 tablets of decongestant. And then, to pay cash/change, had to navigate the lip of the plexiglass barrier keeping the coof germs away from the oriental pharmacy tech. And as I exited the grocery store, to my left was a hijbed woman loudly jabbering into her phone. Directly in front of me was a tsigani – a gypsy – with a hand-lettered begging sign. The daily… Read more »
We share the same imaginary free state. You’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head. It is one of the many reasons I have become such a recluse. I’m less angry and hateful when I don’t have to see the mutants that I am supposed to share the planet with.
you should have lit her on fire right then and there! tell the police she was a depressed buddhist…
It’s not enough to say that someone can be paid off to say anything. I’m sure this ex-General is being paid by defense contractors, as all the media talking heads get their bank deposits on time. You need a certain personality type for both fields, and for that matter, anyone who actually likes living and working inside the Beltway. They have to be externally motivated. They already need to come with the hooks for the strings that make them dance. The media, just as the Pentagon, just as the intel field, self selects for people with these traits. People like… Read more »
Perfectly stated and well written comment, Mr. Wirth. Your observation applies to many fields: business and academia no less than government, it seems to me. The people who actually care about good work and professional craft are either laboring anonymously in the trenches or off doing something entrepreneurial. It’s the mediocre, the insecure and the greedy who are chasing after the brass ring, constantly moving with the political winds and working so hard to climb the ladder in any big organization. This is just the human condition I suppose, but now that Western society is captive to all these new… Read more »
In other words, Taibbi thinks it is reasonable to think such a [mind control] device exists.
Well, he’s not completely wrong. There may not be a device per se, but a system comprised of many devices and components. It goes by various names – propaganda, advertising, gas lighting, etc. And it may not be 100% successful, but successful enough to have an impact.
Of course, not suggesting the Russians used it or have it or are particularly good at it. At least not nearly as good at it as our own regime is.
For that system to work it requires something close to ‘full spectrum dominance,’ like the globohomo propaganda machine has had. Which is not what they were alleging that the Russians had done. Indeed it was hard to say what exactly they were alleging the Russians had done. Something like tilting the election by buying ads on Facebook. Genius! How come nobody else ever thought of that?
“The woman claiming her small child is another sex may be motivated by a desire for attention, but her determination to mutilate her child is driven by belief.”
Munchausen by proxy. its always the Mother. In many cases the Father does his best to stop it, but the Mother tends to get what she wants
The spam filter prevents me linking a story about that Texas dad, but I’m sure you’ve heard about it.
I saw a story recently about an immigrant fellow who is going to court to have his sex officially re-assigned as female, in order to have a better chance at winning a child custody battle with his wife.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/06/desperate-dad-legally-changes-gender-to-female-in-bid-to-gain-custody-of-kids/
Personally, I can’t talk about the subject of child custody without Fed Poasting, so I’ll leave it at that.
“Don’t worry, they’ll come around after I show them this latest round of charts and graphs!”
-Signed normie conservative
…and then in the NEXT election in which we vote harder, we’ll win bigly, and all will be well. Amen.
I’d like to know where anyone is getting information that the war is going well for the Russians. Aside from the places where the Russians lines totally collapsed, the lines haven’t moved in many, many months. The Russian army completely retreated from North of Crimea across a river and then there was the great rout North of the Donbas. Ukraine is fielding a million man army with the best weapons NATO can offer. Russia’s air force is basically grounded (not that Ukraine’s air force is any better off). It’s turned into a rerun of WW1. Russia has just announced another… Read more »
It is next to impossible to get accurate and reliable information about the war. That’s been one of the secondary revelations about the madness. Overall, though, the United States has attained its primary objective already: the economic destruction of Western Europe, particularly Germany, thus forcing it to be even more reliant on the GAE. If the reports are true of mercenaries becoming more and more commonplace, and who knows if that is the case, then the Ukrainian military already has been decimated and this is just to keep the clock running. That’s not a Russian military victory, of course, but… Read more »
At the start of the war Scott Ritter said that every time the US/NATO send more money/weapons to the Ukraine the war will last a little longer. It looks like he was right
All the hardware the Ukraine had this time last year is gone, well over 100K Ukrainians are dead, it could be over 200K by now, we have now way of knowing
The war will continue as long as more weapons arrive from the West and Ukrainian men are willing to die for Globohomo
I wish he was still doing the regular show and not the interview style shows. He was another voice of reason in English. All of the English language mainstream press is nothing but GAE propaganda. if they say the sun will rise in the East, I’m gonna have double check it. They are just so reliably unreliable. Nothing they say can ever be taken at face value. The 2 YT channels I follow seem to not be either Russian shills or GAE shills. But even just looking at the map, I just cannot work out all the happy talk for… Read more »
Ok Napolian.
Boy howdy those ukes huh.
Collaborators; media. are just that doesn’t matter whether they are true believers or payrolled liars they all belong at the bottom of the sea.
That Dima guy from the Military Summary channel is an hysterical idiot who is cashing in on his 15 minutes of fame. He blathers on and on with truly terrible analysis and nothing original to add. I listened to him once and that was enough.
There are only a few things that we know for sure. 1. Russia is not running out of tanks, equipment, shells, etc. It’s been a year. If they haven’t run out yet, they’re not going to run out. Western experts have been wrong about this from the beginning. 2. The West can’t supply Ukraine with enough material to allow Ukraine to operate at full capacity. We know this from our own statistics. We simply don’t have the industrial capacity to provide amount of artillery, shells, vehicles, etc. The Ukrainians even say this. It’s why we’ve limited the artillery that we’ve… Read more »
I have no reason to believe the Russians are running out of tanks or ammo or any other weapons system or war supplies. MAFAN VOR did a video yesterday and 2 days ago highlighting two absolutely enormous production facilities dedicated to war materials production. I have no reason to believe Vlad is dying, about to be the subject of a coup, retiring or anything else the MSM has claimed. All I know is what is plainly visible on a map. To me, none of what I see on a map justifies happy talk of impending victory for the Russians. The… Read more »
I saw a blurb, unverified but believable (and in fact referenced by other comments here), that Russia has enough slack in their military production that they are still able to sell arms abroad while the war is ongoing.
I agree that it’s very hard to tell from our vantage point which side is winning. I’m simply pointing out what I know. The most important point is that we can’t produce enough war material to keep up. That’s a fact that even our side quietly admits. Sooner or later, the Ukrainians won’t have enough artillery, missiles, etc. We simply won’t be able to give it to them. The Ukrainians only hope was that either 1) the Russians really couldn’t produce enough of their own war material in which case they’d run out before the West; 2) that the American… Read more »
You haven’t been paying attention have you? There is plenty of information out there not from shills that show that Russia is winning hands down. Remember, the express Russian strategy from the get go has been demilitarization and deNazification of the Ukraine. They have used the cauldron strategy in Mariupol and now in Soledar and Bakhmut to inflict maximum casualties on the Nazi units like Azov and on foreign mercenaries. The Ukraine has stupidly reinforced these areas beyond reason and Russia has been happy to kill more and more. From the start, ghost of Kiev, Snake Island and everything else… Read more »
the one thing that is not being manufactured is more ukrainian soldiers.
I see you are indeed serious so I apologize for my snarky response earlier. Zelenski and the West have a need to win this war in the media. Without “progress” and “victories” the West will quickly withdraw support as the true cost- steep recession throughout Europe and the de-industrialization of Germany, becomes apparent. I think You have lost sight of what the goals of Russia are: Putin’s stated goal of the de-militarization of Ukraine implies the destruction of the Ukrainian armed forces. Putin’s approach is not driven by the media and his time frame is different. His is a limited… Read more »
Berletic is a good one, a realist and even-handed.
Your comment reflects a very one-dimensional understanding of war. Consider: 1. Ukrainian army has been effectively destroyed as a fighting force, completing one of the original goals of the war. Numerous reports are emerging that most of the soldiers on the Ukrainian front lines are Polish. 2. The relatively stationary front lines have basically functioned as a kill box for the Russian army to draw in and slaughter the Ukrainian forces at very little loss of Russian life. 3. Why would you assume Russia’s Air Force is grounded? Attack helicopters and fighter-based air support are being used regularly, when useful.… Read more »
“4. European economies are slowly collapsing under the weight of increased energy prices. It’s only a matter of time before social unrest forces European governments to change course. This could easily be the end of NATO, which would be a major strategic victory for Russia.”
Collapsing European economies was the primary war goal of the United States, though.
“Your comment reflects a very one-dimensional understanding of war.”
I’ll take that minor victory!
I figured it was more like .5 dimensions. I don’t know anything about military affairs. I’m going largely by what other people say and what i can see on a map other people have prepared.
The problem is that a map doesn’t tell you much in a war of attrition – until the very end. It also doesn’t tell you much with Eastern style of warfare, which is more about destroying an opponent than taking territory. But, you’re correct in saying that if a map doesn’t tell us much and we don’t know the truth about other issues, such as how many many are being killed on each side, it’s tough to know what’s going on. As I’ve said in my other comments, I only know one thing for certain: The West can’t produce enough… Read more »
Admittedly, much has changed in 30 years. But I happened to be working in a steel distributor during the first Gulf war before I went back to school. The massive increase in aluminum armor which we were approved as a distributor we got in was astonishing. We had it piled up everywhere. We even had to buy a new giant 10 ton rock to check for flatness of the plate. (you lay the plate on the rock and then use feeler gauges to measure how out of flat a plate was) This was just one random steel distributor in Philadelphia.… Read more »
Try sonar21.com, thesaker.com, and Reminiscence of the Future for better information on war in Ukraine.
Also try Col. Doug Macgregor’s site: futuredefensevisions dot blogspot dot com
Anyone new to the strategic backdrop should hit ‘older posts’ then find the SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022 interviews with Vlahos.
He might be right about the Russian Air force, once the Ukraine runs out of missiles for their S300 we might see more from the Russian AF
Thanks for the laugh. I do enjoy satire.
I don’t know the first thing about military. I’m perfectly willing to be corrected and shown to be wrong. But ‘lol, this is satire’ is far from a correction. Have the lines moved without my knowing it? Is Russia not facing a now well dug in military at least twice its size? Do you believe the support for NATO supporting Ukraine is coming to an end?
See my reply about a page up.
Have a listen to the Greeks at The Doran.
Two good pieces today
https://theduran.locals.com/post/3336824/ukraines-donbass-defense-system-collapsing
https://theduran.locals.com/post/3337281/russia-presses-ukraine-in-soledar-bakhmut-ukraine-mulls-retreat-patrushev-says-russia-fights-west
well, the ukes are calling up teenagers, and their electrical grid is at something like 25% intact. what does that tell you? what is the scenario where Russia loses?
If you believe I said I believe Russia is in danger of imminent defeat, I really have to be more careful about how I word things.
Ben Hodges works for something called the “Center for European Policy Analysis”. The “supporters” it lists on its website are a rogue’s gallery of defense contractors, multi-national corporations and, of course, the U.S. State Department. This is a common thread for most of the former military brass (e.g., David Petreaus) and members of think tanks (e.g., ISW) who regularly appear on TV to promote the Ukraine narrative. What they never disclose is that they have a vested interest in promoting the Ukraine narrative. In essence, they are being paid by the defense industry and the U.S government to advocate on… Read more »
Most of the retired generals I see usually obtain some side gig as “consultant” to some major military contractor or set up shop themselves as one-man “consultancy firms.” In both cases they attempt to trade their connections and inside knowledge for hard cash. Corruption is inherently built into the system.
Ben Hodges::Cincinnatus as Madonna::The Madonna
An important corollary to this is simple stupidity. People in general are dumb. Media people are *really* dumb, and whether or not Russia really has a mind-control ray, I believe cameras and microphones really do project an enstupidation field — stick a camera or mic in someone’s face, and their IQ immediately drops 30 points. (I know a few academics who are routinely called on to give Media soundbites. I met them when they weren’t yet Experts, and lemme tell ya, they’re so much dumber now). As for the general level of stupidity, I remember touring NASA on a family… Read more »
I recall from the 1980s plenty of magazine photos and clips on the tv news about Astronauts training in underwater tanks. In fairness to your fellow visitors, they might’ve thought the tour guide was referring to those. Not everyone should be expected to know the precise “inside baseball” terminology of astrophysics.
I see what you’re saying, and appreciate your charity on behalf of our fellow man, but the tour guide really sold the “anti-gravity room” thing. It was clear in context that she meant a room where the Law of Gravity is nullified (I should’ve been clearer myself on that point).
i worked for NASA for a short while :). they use airplanes to create zero gravity like conditions. it costs $70k per person per flight.
The “Vomit Comet.” Which you have to admit is a great name for a government program.
Watched a Q&A with Stalin biographer Steven Kotkin. He said that from the 1920’s to the 90’s US government Kremlinologists always maintained that the Bolsheviks did not believe the collectivist nonsense they preached. However, when the private politburo meeting records were released after the USSR collapse it showed that behind closed doors they did indeed discuss communist principles and how to best implement them.
Yes our own US apparatchik truly do believe it all – Ukraine, Climate change, 52 genders, white supremacy, J6 insurrection…
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that they believe in all this and more. Sixty years ago these were the people who believed with all their hearts that the Negro was a blank slate.
To be fair, it was much more believable then. They hadn’t yet faced 60 straight years of failure to see the dream realized. The funny thing is, they probably believe it a lot more strongly today than their predecessors did back then.
dude, the nigs have been here 400 years! just ask them 😛
Well, “our wokies” are cut from the same cloth; i.e., blank slate fanatics. It is the undergirding of their entire Weltanschauung, so it can never be allowed to come into question.
I think they really do believe it, but they don’t perceive the same “it” as objective people do (i.e. we have a fundamentally epistemological problem). Take the case of Ukraine, for instance. The believers do not deal with basic physical reality. They do not understand the problems of global industrial production and its dependence on cheap energy from carbon fuels. They do not understand the logistics of supplying an army in Ukraine. They do not understand that Russia has been ahead of the West in weapons development for close to 20 years now. Those of us who do understand these… Read more »
Im sorry the nuns were scary to the boomers when they were young but maybe they shouldn’t have helped piss away Christianity in favor of sports. Now we’re stuck with crazy.
The NFL playing on Sundays through the most important Christian holiday period of the year has had an incredibly destructive effect on US society.
When’s the last time a goyim had the stones to pull a Sandy Koufax on Christmas or Easter? I can’t recall it in my lifetime. Over in Europe there’s always a big to do around Ramadan because the Muzzie footballers fast during the day and it effects their training and game play. No one thinks this is strange or exotic, but if a Catholic demanded meat-free Fridays at the training canteen or refused to suit up for an Easter Sunday match, there’d be a hue and cry.
I hope you are doing your part to recover what we lost. Church goer?
My mom once told me a story from when she was in the Air Force back in the early 1980s. She was stationed in Germany and was a part of some high ranking general’s staff. During exercises she would have to listen to this general bicker with other generals over stupid, childish BS. All the while praying that we never had a real war with the Russians because our generals were a bunch of retarded children. So it doesn’t surprise me one bit that a supposed smarty-pants former general would have such a bad take on the situation with the… Read more »
I’m beginning to believe that the idea that the senior executives in government, the military, and corporations are serious people is something that passed into the realm of myth and legend years, maybe even decades ago.
“Why is there no one in these media organizations asking basic questions? The unanimity in the media strongly suggests they are a hive of true believers.” From my experiences in this life, I can address three issues: First, the media. To begin with, they just aren’t that bright. In fact, most of the people who work in media are demonstrably stupid beings who have always taken the easy path. Oddly enough, considering their profession, they have an amazing lack of curiosity about the world around them. Their only focus is getting attention for themselves and being on TV. Second, the… Read more »
> There were a few true believers, but all the rest just did what they were told with a vengeance. That really opened my eyes to human nature. It just doesn’t matter what most people know in their heart to be true, they will always do what they are told. Used to think that most health care workers were going through the motions in fear of being fired and suck with 200k in medical debt. Now it’s clearer they will believe and follow authorities, no matter how insane, without a word. The expert cult is as bad in Health Care… Read more »
Good information Outdoorspro. Someone sent me a story last night about a UCLA professor who openly advocated for merit based systems. Some students wrote him an email asking him to raise the grades of black students. His response was some obvious Socratic questioning that pointed out their stupidity and then a polite, firm and simple, No. The instigators/subversives rallied 20,000 students to demand that he be fired for refusing to bolster exam scores for black students. The UCLA administration suspended him. Let that sink in. 20,000 students advocated having only blacks have their grades inflated rendering their own grades and… Read more »
3 questions asked in the essay: “Are the people writing these tall tales liars? Do they really believe what they are writing? Are they just vessels being filled by lairs or true believers in the content creation system?”
For ‘the people’ / ‘they’, the simple answer still seems to come in the form of a question: Do we think it will harm Trump?
If yes – tell it, print it, post it.
If no – suppress it, bury it, ban it.
1. I’d guess it’s either a simple case of one’s generosity towards another being in proportion to how much they have in common, or ignorance, or denial. Some conservatives kind of believe this stuff, others are still in disbelief of or shell-shocked by the depravity of it. I get it, it’s a tough journey to the other side, but after a point there’s no excuse for not making it. 2. Ukraine talk makes me think of Democracy!, or utopia, or Zion, in that order of insanity. It’s all zealotry and desperation at this point imo, and I think I erred… Read more »
RE: Andrew Tate Yesterday’s post and comments were the most depressing I’ve seen here. I have fucked up bigger, longer & more than most of you, but I believe I have learned a few things. Above all this: the greatest tragedies are wasted time and human potential, the former being just another way of saying the latter. So… 1) Try to treat all women with respect all of the time, especially the ones who do not respect themselves. If they need killing, kill with kindness, and be seen to do so. Real virtu signals itself, but it doesn’t hurt to… Read more »
V
Good post that compels introspection.
Thank you.
True story. Nothing wrong with a good row sometimes, though. And by that I mean getting angry without crossing into abuse.
I know we’re not supposed to get angry, after decades of New Age and Feel Good, but it has its place. It efficiently exhausts energies without tying yourself in knots, you mature by learning to handle it responsibly, you don’t go postal or turn Buddhist.
Yet another healthy thing we’ve been stripped of.
“you don’t go postal or turn Buddhist.”
You don’t go PUA or MGTOW, to put it in perspective.
I’m not sure I get the admonition about there being no “perfect” families. Of course there weren’t, but there’s no doubt that the families of my parents age, both of whom were born in the early 40’s, in their heavily Catholic, working-class town, were far healthier overall than today. When my folks were in high school, divorce was almost unknown, everyone had siblings, parents mostly occupied traditional roles, etc. That was no Jewish trick. The trick was convincing everyone that such a community was to be mocked and scorned, and that the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Wonderful post. It is great to hear a man speak up and to know he has been walking the walk in his life. I too was troubled by the anger against women expressed yesterday. We are better than that; only if we prove it with our words and actions. I will add that taking the approach to foster our young boys and girls is great. It will be even better if it could be coordinated. I am dealing with a school system that has spat on my grand nieces and nephews. It isn’t a burden. The task to help them… Read more »
PeriheliusLux: “I will add that taking the approach to foster our young boys and girls is great.”
Right up until you realize that the folks with the very most urgent & compelling desire to foster our young boys and girls are precisely the s0d0mites & bu11dykes who seek to molest those young boys and girls [if not outright torture and murd3r them].
Always be deeply suspicious of adults who are too enthusiastic about spending time with pre-teens and teens.
The family was created for a REASON, that reason being the protection of the children in the family.
I’ve seen some families that were pretty close to perfect. Close enough to it that even some skeleton hiding in a dark closet that I didn’t know about wouldn’t be enough to set them back very much.
Certainly, if nobody else, the middle-aged childless women believe whatever the priests of the faith say – totally, completely, and fanatically. Deprived of the constraints of patriarchy, our women have become the berserkers of the Woke Legions.
Not too long ago a foreign policy analyst went after a Chinese bureaucrat for making fun of a fellow foreign policy analyst for not even knowing Chinese. He stated that due to modern technology, it was no longer necessary to know the language of the nation you are analyzing. Anyone with even a passing idea of the nuance of language could tell you how insanely idiotic such a statement is, but these people really think they’re experts reading English translations of Chinese papers from their air conditioned rooms in Washington D.C. The modern idea that you can understand the world… Read more »
Spot on Chet! I make my living, such as it is, analyzing things. The limits of what we can truly know from the office/desktop, let alone the field, have been made painfully clear to me over a long career. I just lose money, but these other guys get people killed.
Meanwhile, my old professors all spoke the languages of the countries they studied. It’s just farcical what passes for “expertise” these days. We could all get together and do a great blog about the Gell-Mann Amnesia we have witnessed in recent years.
Regarding things being lost in translation, several years ago I interviewed for a position at the Carter Center. One of the pre-interview tasks was to translate from Chinese to English a short academic article. One of the interviewers told me that it was a relief reading mine because the other applicants had been mainland Chinese and their English translations were nearly unreadable. But they also hinted that it wouldn’t matter because the goal was ultimately to get a diverse face on the website/brochure. In the end whatever translation this new hire wound up producing was then further translated into competent… Read more »
Great observation. In fact, even people who ostensibly speak the same language often misunderstand each other, have their local/regional colloquiums, etc. Imagine a Harlem jogger and Scottish highlander in the same room with no translator.
On so many topics, C-v-d, Ukraine, black crime, whether antifa actually exists or is a lie from the far right, I have been shocked by how many intelligent people that I know just believe what the media tells them. Full stop. This is why I have concluded that until the media content delivery system is disrupted, there is not much we can do but prepare and form informal networks. People, smart people, are more programmable than I ever imaged. On the bright side, if we ever get control of that system, we may find that almost everyone agrees with us… Read more »
Covid was the eye-opener. All of us realized propaganda was pervasive and people lapped it up, but Covid showed how fully realized the totalitarian state had become. As always, a compliant people is required to attain absolute control, and that’s largely been achieved. Intelligence or lack thereof has proved not to be a factor in how easily people are propagandized. Trotsky suggested it was easier to propagandize the educated classes because they would believe anything if authority, however spurious, was attached to it. I once believed this but no longer think it is a complete explanation. There is something larger… Read more »
Speaking of the coof, I remember early on in the madness expressing some mild skepticism about the claims to my Mom. She responded strongly with what she had heard on CNN or Oprah.
I asked, “If c-v-d is so deadly, then why do they allow the BLM protests to happen and moreso without masks? We cannot expose such wonderful people to the risks that you described.”
She was literally speechless. But when she recovered, her beliefs did not change. I still love her, it’s not her fault.
“She was literally speechless. But when she recovered, her beliefs did not change. I still love her, it’s not her fault.”
I have come to realize that ‘cognitive dissonance’ is one of the most powerful things in modern life. Strictly speaking, cd is supposed to cause stress in the person experiencing it, so I’m wondering if all the media entertainment is the remedy for that stress. If the constant media re-enforcement were to end, would cd have to be addressed?
Trotsky suggested it was easier to propagandize the educated classes because they would believe anything if authority, however spurious, was attached to it.
He may not be completely wrong, but only a step removed from the true reason. It is not authority per se, but pride/hubris. If all the great authorities believe X, why, I will be numbered among the great authorities if I also believe X. Lucifer, after all, was reportedly among the brightest, and it was his pride that done him in.
Incidentally, this is why physicians are usually pretty easy marks for scam artists.
Jack: It’s strange how both prescient and yet dated “1984” and “Brave New World” are both when read today. The idea that one would be mandated to have a telescreen on at all times is the one that strikes me as insanely funny. I have literally not turned on a tv set in years and only ‘watched’ what I’ve been unable to avoid out in public (been meaning to buy the TV-B-Gone from Amazon for a while. But 99.9% of the people voluntarily keep their eyes glued to their phone or some screen – ANY screen – almost every moment… Read more »
Jack Dobson: “Trotsky suggested it was easier to propagandize the educated classes because they would believe anything if authority, however spurious, was attached to it.” In general, Bronstein was correct there, although in recent decades [going back to circa the early 1960s], Bronstein’s Tribe’s increasing control of the schools & universities has allowed said Tribe to SELECT for precisely the obedient-to-authority goyische personality type to be promoted through the school & university system, to the complete detriment & disadvantage of the more recalcitrant goyische personality types. [The essays required for college admission nowadays are simply a psycho-sociological filtering mechanism to… Read more »
I think I may have come up with a good analogy for the Normies & Social Proof. Do any of y’all remember the recurring nightmare you had, as a kid, where you went to school in either your pajamas, or else completely buck nekkid, and all the other kids in your class were pointing at you, and laughing uproariously at you, for being such a total freak and a loser, and you were mortally horrified at yourself, and you kept wondering why you were so stupid, why your Mom drove you to school in your pajamas, why she didn’t make… Read more »
Co-Vid = Seen Together. The pandemic has been a giant mass media viewing event. That is all.
The Latin root, “Co-” as in “cooperate,” means together, or in av communal group. The past tense of the Latin verb, “vis,” is “vidi,” as in the famous “vini, vidi, vici,” which means [he] came, he saw, he vanquished.”
The resultant coagulate is a constituency for vax and fear porn is the industries devoted market. Their media spectacle has allowed them to plumb this captive demographic’s depths and to handle it like a the faberge egg it that it is.
The Left shot themselves through the balls when they decided that truth is relative. If truth is relative, the world is relative. If the world is relative, all the rest comes tumbling out like turd from a donkey’s arse. Science becomes a matter of consensus. Facts can change daily as narratives demand. You whine because they think the human being is a blank slate – hell’s bells – to those guys, the entire UNIVERSE and reality itself is a blank state. Hence the notion that perception is reality. In Globohomo America, the ruling class has slipped its semantic cams. If… Read more »
Moral relativism was corrosive. Factual relativism is deadly.
“My personal truth” indeed.
I think that death toll estimate is both short and already passed.
dude, the death toll from the vaxx is – just in AINO – is closing in on 1M, right now.
Glen-
I wish I had your optimism.
I think we’re on track for a toll in the tens, possibly hundreds of millions.
Glenfilthie: “The Left shot themselves through the balls when they decided that truth is relative.” I dunno, Bro, you go on to describe situations and eventualities which are not just advantageous but psychologically delectable for the Left. From my point of view, in literal terms, the Left “shot themselves through the balls” when they allowed [and encouraged?] their daughters to run off to Planned Parenthood and murder their grandchildren. Then, more recently, when the Left all lined up in unison [dutifully? enthusiastically? ecstatically?] for their MRNA v@xxinations, with the lipid nanoparticles immediately heading straight for the ovaries and testes of… Read more »
“Is the former general lying? Does he believe what he is saying? Has he simply gone insane or taken up drug use?” The answer is that he is probably not very smart. I’ve spoken to one or two of these US generals. They;re not very bright. They’re not Heinz Guderian, they’re not Carl von Clausewitz. You don’t get a star, let alone three or four stars, if you’re any kind of dissenter. “Ours not to question why.” You don’t get past colonel if you’re the type who asks questions or points out inconvenient truths. If the US general staff had… Read more »
@Arshad Ali. Ignore John’s shortcomings (his ego oozes through his prose), but he does a good job analyzing what you mentioned above.
https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/66449667-is-there-any-such-thing-as-military-expertise
Cheers. Interesting read.
It was a good read, thanks.
Hodges is an interesting fellow. Military guys usually care a lot about their reputation among their fellow military guys, but the last few years has seen a bunch of these ex-generals, like Hodges, who spout the company line. Yes, this will give them celebrity, money and positions at various universities or think tanks, but in the past, that would have mattered very little to them if they lost the respect of their fellow officers. Yet, today, they seem more concerned about how they’re viewed by the media and the intelligence communities. This is not a good sign. Our top brass… Read more »
This is true across the board. Intelligence officials, for example, have become slightly smarter versions of Kamala Harris, whores who use their skills to achieve the Peter Principle. This madness will end in mass death, possibly as a result of nuclear war.
All living things are creatures of habit. And this is because of evolution. Any organism that repeats a success behavior will survive and thrive more so than another that simply expresses random behaviors. And consequently some of these behaviors eventually get encoded in DNA and are called “innate.” This is a Type I habit and it cannot be changed, only suppressed. Some behaviors are “learned” postpartum and become “hard-wired” during the early growth phase when the brain doubles in size. Humans, through the use of complex language, take advantage of this biomechanism to instill their young will useful behaviors that… Read more »
Matt Taibbi has always hated himself and his own people. He’s the one that believed it was Republicans in Massachusetts that controlled Raytheon and all the tech firms on 128 would be voting for Romney in 2012. He’s mostly been a fool and a partisan true believer when it came to criticizing “the Right” while never acknowledging the uniparty. His critique of Goldman Sachs aside, this is the same dickhead who marketed the term “riding while black” (as in black bike riders being the target of police). To hell with him and most children of privilege from Massachusetts. They’re also… Read more »
You might find this link interesting. It shows the political donation history of Raytheon by political parties.
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/raytheon-technologies/C00097568/summary/2020
Very obliged. I enjoy reading citations.
I suspect that Mr. Z is overlooking the $ angle. All of the “Ukraine Good, Russia Bad” and “Ukraine is winning, Russia is losing” talk is coming from people who work, ultimately, for the bankers and defense contractors. They are not objective observers, they are paid shills.
And they’re being paid by the same thugs who paid for all of the covid vaccine propaganda.
The creepy barmaid, now congress critter has said one truthful thing in her otherwise rotten life, “It’s all about the Benjamins.”
I suggest, in a friendly way, that you hold the belief that this all reduces to “the $ angle” for the same reason that you are a libertarian. Your model of the world, although tidy, does not fit the world in which we live.
Ponder why libertarian conferences are more white and male than the white nationalist conferences that I attend. Your model can’t explain facts likethis.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. FYI: I discovered I was a libertarian after reading Bastiat’s book, “The Law” in 1972. Then I discovered Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises at a bookstore in Belmont, Massachusetts run by the John Birch Society. The Birchers I knew didn’t care much for Murray, I’m sad to say. What most people think of as libertarians are just a few fools who think the world would be a better place if everyone could just smoke pot in public. They can’t wait for the next issue of Reason Rag to show up in… Read more »
“The creepy barmaid, now congress critter has said one truthful thing in her otherwise rotten life, “It’s all about the Benjamins.”” The was the ungrateful Somali. That aside, Zelensky probably did initially play his role for the coin. But we now know Boris Johnson approached him with an offer he could not refuse when he floated the idea of peace negotiations. Johnson, who obviously was acting as a GAE agent, most likely told him his life expectancy would be longer if he kept taking the cash and promoting war. The GAE is thuggish and monstrous and still will murder Zelensky… Read more »
Ok class, all together now, say KEEEEEV! Remember, not KI-EV….. Ben Hodges looks to be another “participation” general, like Milley. Supposedly received a minor flesh wound in an attack on some base in Afghanistan, but otherwise mostly a paper pusher. On one hand, I guess it’s somewhat more comforting to believe all of these clowns are Machiavellian type liars. But it appears more and more likely, as Z has posited, they actually believe their s***. Now that’s some scary s*** to be sure.
?
“QUE-EE-EEE-EEEEFFFFFFF…..”
Pronunciation aside – the senior brass, or in squaddie vernacular – the REMFs – are all on the payroll of the military industrial complex just as the senior politicos are. Their speech is just as regulated and controlled as that of a no-name mass media ‘journalist’. I disagree with our esteemed host – he gives journalists far too much credit. They are not content creators – their content is created by others. All the modern journalist does is shovel it. Milley recently got severely spanked for addressing the joint chiefs and saying that the ‘Kraine is at the end of… Read more »
“I disagree with our esteemed host – he gives journalists far too much credit. They are not content creators – their content is created by others. All the modern journalist does is shovel it.” I do believe that our host has made that point on numerous occasions… I spent way too many years in TV newsrooms and can attest to the truth of your point. From the smallest media markets, to the largest, this is a fact. They may go out and interview and report on local matters, but anything national all comes from feeds. All they do is a… Read more »
I think these people are so removed from reality that they believe the insanity they’re spouting. The other day, I was watching a flock of grackles flying out of a tree and they suddenly turned as a group for no apparent reason. I think the insanity starts at the top and the rest of the ruling class, like the grackles in the flock, follows along lest they be left behind and eaten by a marauding hawk. As stated here many times, no one in the ruling class wants to be outside the accepted opinion on the issues of the day.
The perceived reality of dominant, local group opinion is more pressing than the actual reality in a far-flung place. The problem, of course, is that nuclear warheads can be flung far also.
It goes well beyond reporting the current situation, which at least is debatable. Historical facts are also routinely chucked out the window by the media. Crimea has been Russian since Catherine the Great took it from the Ottomans; this is beyond dispute. Erich von Manstein, one of the greatest generals in modern history, took over 7 months to capture Sevastopol. The mere notion that Ukraine could do better than the Wehrmacht at the height of its ability is farfetched at best. Whatever…… I think the partial explanation of Zman’s issue is that the “feedback loop” for the media has been… Read more »
“And the retired Generals can either get on board or enjoy a modest retirement golfing at lousy base courses and shopping at the PX instead of Whole Foods.” You really nailed it right there. Being a Flag Officer is about as close to royalty is you can see in the US. Once you put on that first star, your life becomes amazing. You appearance is always announced and prepared for. You have Aides. Everything is clean and polished for your arrival. Everyone does your bidding without hesitation, and no one “beneath” you will ever contradict you publicly. It really is… Read more »
Sometimes I wonder if any of it is real. I rarely talk about Ukraine or Russia in real life and when I do it’s to other people that get all their information off the internet. I see the occasional Ukrainian flag in a yard or a sticker on a car and I just think those people are idiots. But beyond that it hasn’t affected my world at all. Like all the Grand events that have happened in the last few years that all seems so cataclysmic and yet everything just goes on like normal.
“beyond that it hasn’t affected my world at all”
You must not have received your monthly natural gas bill yet or gone grocery shopping recently…
It’s obviously not JUST Ukraine, but the Covidian tyranny, Biden installation combined with Ukrainian war mongering has substantially lowered my standard of living.
Bolsonaro is Sr. Hilter, El Segundo.
Speaking of he/her pronouns, a comedian recently spoke about the fact that he wholeheartedly supports men competing in women’s sports but only one condition: that he be permitted to place bets. He said he’d wager that the lady with the hairy face and size 10 shoes will take the race every time.
Sounds like something Bill Burr would say. He’s a gem.
This is just another version of emergent behavior vs. group strategy, so I’ll reup my position: it is both. The NPC’s, and there are many among the media, administrative state, and corporate/religious/political figures, really do believe the insanity, or at least force themselves to mouth the nuttiness to show their devotion. The propaganda and indoctrination, though, largely are directed by people who want to seize control and wealth and effectively have. It is the same with every war–the soldiers follow the commands of their officers. In this case, the commands are indirect and delivered through screens for the most part… Read more »
*I omitted this, but it needs to be added. There have been many cases like the current one where the cynics who manipulate the masses in time become True Believers. This happened with European Christianity. I don’t think, though, the manipulators are there yet.
It seams to me that the true believer percentage of the population has been increasing for decades. Probably the result of modern life. Most people are socially atomized, and experience life through various screens. First television, now their phones. The smart phone experiences are individualized to an extent impossible decades ago when broadcast television was the vehicle. So people increasingly live a fantasy life, curated specifically for themselves. All they know of reality is that which is received via the device. Historically, “true believers” bitterly clung to their delusions even to the point of death. They were a small percent… Read more »
Unfortunately, you are exactly right. The manipulation has been wildly successful and will end horribly.
And don’t expect a “Truth and Reconciliation” commission from our side. We want these people gone.
The immediate impact of believing nonsense these days is minimal. The negative impact of dissenting from the hive is immediate and large. So people follow the path of least resistance.
Well the true believers will get another visit from their messiah, Zelensky is scheduled to speak at the coming Golden Globes.
Should be a hoot and another furrow in my brow trying to understand how these people went this nuts. Maybe it is as simple as prosperity being a bad thing for a society. As things degenerate and worsen in our culture I suspect a long culling of the populace.
A guy who used to post here suggested the propagandists had perfected what he called “mind worms.” I don’t know if that is exactly right but it is close. I hope it is a long culling because the alternative is sudden mass death. History is littered with such.
I can buy that theory if he’s referring to the equivalent of an ear worm, those ditties that, once heard, we can’t get out of our heads. Surely the same thing can be achieved with propaganda.
I’m not certain whether the guy (trumpton, I think) was referencing repetition and amplification as the means to the end, but that certainly was the strategy of Twitter. “Ear worms” seems about right. Regardless, it has been damn-near perfected.
Based on the absolutely rage-filled hysteria in response to the suggestion the anti-parasitic Ivermectin was effective versus the coof, I have to wonder if there is something to things like the idea that toxoplasmosis gondii could affect human behavior.
I mean, to me, the character of the response to vitamin I came off as a cornered organism under threat, lashing out with everything it had to defend itself.
If only Diem had the good sense to come to the Oscars…..
I had to look this one up, how hilarious. He is going to be delivering a message of peace. Yes, because there is nothing globohomo is more interested in promoting than peace. I know these awards shows are desperate for attention, but having Zelensky appear in his superhero uniform is a new low. According to this article the Golden Globes weren’t even televised last year. A good gauge for true believers is to see what kind of audience this draws.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/09/why-the-golden-globes-will-sadly-survive-trainwreck-of-2022/
We should be embarrassed to be associated and in the same polity with these folks, but it’s too easy to laugh at them. FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON years ago was required reading. To summarize, a retarded boy receives medical treatment and for a time realizes how people actually perceive him. It would be hilarious if this could happen to these clowns.
It won’t though because their belief is reinforced in every day life. Media, government and work all promote their insanity and constantly make them out to be superstars.
“It would be hilarious if this could happen to these clowns.”
https://youtu.be/xY1YMxKDKDg