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Corruption is a natural part of government, regardless of the type of government, because men are not angels. Government has the power to compel which means it will always attract the sorts of people who are comfortable using force to take the property of others. In this regard, government corruption is a measure of the tolerance of corruption in the system. Government corruption is a function of the culture that controls the actions of the people in government.
By way of example, think about cheating in sports. Baseball developed a steroid problem because the culture within the sport came to tolerate it. No player dared report another player as it would lower his status in the sport. Once the league instituted tough drug testing measures, the culture changed. Players caught cheating let down their teams and even cost teammates money. This lowered their status so the culture of tolerance flipped to a culture of intolerance.
Police departments have always struggled with the culture of corruption. In the last century, big city police departments would go from clean to dirty almost overnight due to the actions of a few crooked cops. The crooked cops would find ways to get other cops to take bribes or participate in shakedowns. This made all the cops guilty to some degree, even if they just remained silent. An otherwise honest precinct quickly became corrupt because the culture changed.
Police corruption is useful in understanding government corruption. Police departments have a high degree of group loyalty. Fraternity is promoted and reinforced in many ways, thus discouraging cops from reporting corruption. No one wants to be seen as a rat, so the natural tendency is to ignore bad behavior by fellow cops. Corrupt cops easily turn this virtue into a vice, by using this high group loyalty as a way to pressure their fellow cops into ignoring their corruption.
When you look at corrupt police precincts, the pattern repeats. The dirty cops start small, often roping in fellow cops on small things like stealing money from the people they arrest. The victims are not only outsiders, but viewed as the bad guys, so no one is running to the boss to report it. At some point, a critical mass of cops is doing this stuff and the culture changes. The “cool guys” are the ones shaking down drug dealers, while the “squares” look the other way.
We may be seeing the same process in Washington. The credible charges against the Biden family are piling up, but so far, few are speaking out about it. Fringe bomb throwers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are making noises about it, but people with status have been slow to say anything. Chuck Grassley is the most soberminded person to raise the issue, but he was mostly ignored by his fellow senators when he raised the issue last month.
What we know so far is that while Joe Biden was Vice President, he extorted the government of Ukraine. We know this because he used to brag about threatening them into firing the prosecutor looking into corruption. We now know that the Ukrainian prosecutor was looking into Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, which was making deals with prominent Washington people. Hunter Biden was given a no-show job at the company, so we know what was happening here.
We also know that Hunter Biden shook down a Chinese company via text message, using Joe Biden as a threat. We also know the Chinese company gave money to Hunter Biden immediately after the threatening text message. In any other context this is a simple case of extortion. In the political context it is influence peddling. When this is added to the millions of dollars in mystery payments received by members of the Biden family, it suggests a long-term pattern of corruption.
Again, this sort of thing is to be expected. What matters here is the weird cone of silence around this story. Regime media mentions it in passing, often shaping these revelations as partisan bickering. Senior Republicans are trying hard to ignore the whole thing. One reason for this wall of silence is that this sort of corruption is so common that no one knows who is clean and who is dirty. Like the corrupt police precinct, the culture of corruption breeds a culture of silence.
The Hunter Biden stuff strongly suggests that this is not an isolated thing. Everyone in Washington knew that Hunter Biden was a crackhead. The only reason anyone would do business with him was to gain favors from his father. Everyone in Washington knows how things work, so no one can claim ignorance. It is a small town and everyone knows what everyone is doing. They may not have the nitty-gritty details, but they know the general outlines. There are few secrets in Washington.
The other thing that points to a widespread culture of corruption is the outlandish nature of the crimes. Biden bragging about threatening the Ukrainians never raised any alarms in Washington, because it was the new normal. Hunter getting a no-show job at a foreign company raised no eyebrows because everyone was doing it. Hunter being a crackhead doing deals with foreign companies should have raised alarms, but official Washington looked the other way.
This raises the question as to why we are hearing stories about Biden corruption from various whistleblowers and anonymous leakers. Speculation is that it is a way to ease Biden out of the way without a messy primary. That is possible, given his failing mental condition, but there is another reason. Based on his recent public appearances it is clear that he is fading quickly. It is possible he drops dead soon and that would mean putting the moronic Kamala Harris in charge.
Another answer is that no one cares. Things have reached the point in Washington where everyone shrugs at this stuff. Like the corrupt police precinct, morality has been turned on its head. Those not involved in shakedowns and influence peddling are viewed as fools, while the smash and grab people are high status. This behavior is now a form of ingroup signaling. Your willingness to take money and your creativity in doing it is what elevates your status in Washington.
None of this bodes well for the civic nationalist types. A system that presents the voters with a choice between two men in ski masks is not going to result in one of them turning on the other. What this all points to is that we are in the final phase of what Sir John Glubb described in The Fate of Empires. The American empire has entered the final phase where looting is the norm and decline is embraced. Everyone is grabbing what they can before the music stops and the party ends.
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The Biden bribery stuff was supposed to be a controlled demolition. Payments that everyone already knows about are alleged. The House subpoenas bank records, and shows up with receipts. And there are audio tapes showing that Biden was directly involved, so he can’t blame it on the crack head.
The problem with a controlled demolition is there are many variables. Get any of them wrong, or change one, or introduce new ones (eg wind), and the results can go awry. The building falls the wrong way and there is a lot of collateral damage.
Enter the IRS whistleblower. I don’t think anybody saw that coming. I don’t think anybody expected that guy to show up with receipts. Each time they lie, he releases another file that shows they’re lying. The fact that it hasn’t been squashed yet means the FBI and DOJ know he has the goods. The receipts.
That guy likely becomes a witness for Trump in Miami, for example. Not sure if DOJ is corrupt and prosecuting its enemies while protecting its friends? Let me introduce you to Jesse Waters and John Durham.
The controlled demolition is now spinning in a new direction. The AG has been caught in a lie. He dragged Lisa Monaco – who looked like she was being perp walked – out on stage to stand behind him while he lied. Message: I ain’t taking the fall alone. You have multiple career bureaucrats caught up in this, too. Those people live in the shadows, but now their names are public. The dirty cops now have NAMES.
Even in late stage empire, looters are still found and hanged from lamp posts as a warning to others.
Another unintended side effect of the controlled demolition is public realization that the 2020 election really was rigged. That’s bad for the Government Party because the same people claiming it was legit are the dirty cops abusing the legal system, running entrapment schemes, and imprisoning innocent people. People likely now are starting to realize that the Ukraine impeachment was a cover up. Just like the Mueller Probe and Durham Probe were cover ups. As the Government Party loses legitimacy we’re seeing their mania INCREASE.
Things are getting out of hand, and that is a good thing.
For many years now, the American leadership class has mirrored a very interesting scene in the movie Goodfellas. After getting control of this bar/restaurant, the mobsters begin buying cases of liquor on credit and selling it out the back door, when the restaurant’s credit is shot, they burn the place down for the insurance money.
As an american, you are living through this final phase of burning the place down. And the mobsters here are most certainly not Italians.
Spot on Post by Z.
the whole system is corrupt. not rocking the boat is a loyalty test for not only players in the system but for the press and voters.
Until the green light is given to do so, stating the obvious about the Bidens’ flagrant corruption is something only done by science denying, Maga Republican White supremacists who are pawns of Putin. Do you really want Putin to win?
Besides we have an entire culture built on gaming the system. The only people who aren’t in on it are those evil Maga Republicans and those of us in the Dissident Right.
That uninspiring old white man who warned the sub company that their sub was a disaster waiting to happen was dealt with like all heretics. He was replaced by loyal strong, independent, White women.
So it isn’t all about money. The system can work well for anyone with no real values besides what is in it for me.
The hour is even later. Nominated to replace Milley is a bitter, resentful black man who is so pyschpathic that he was up in arms when he parked in a reserved spot and was politely questioned when he was in his civvies.
This guy has openly proposed a strict officer and enlistment quota system holding whites allotment far below our percentage in the population. After doing this, he is nominated for JCOS. Think about that. Right now Tuberville from AL is holding the line. If Tuberville fails, then all branches of government will have rewarded a vehemant anti-white AirForce man who openly proposes race quotas in the military and holding whites far below our population percentage, will be validated. That will make an anti-white military and the planning and implementation of its apartheid official government policy.
That only Tuberville is holding this up in an absolute disgrace – and should be a grave cause for concern.
apartheid, you say?
Keeping Whitey out of the officer Corp will increase the degradation of the military. That’s a good thing.
As for Apartheid, Chimps and camel jockeys have a hard enough time with toasters. An Abrahams?
Good luck with that.
“My murderer was an idiot,” he didn’t say from the ditch he was buried in next to his wife and children, and all his hundred million dead relatives said the same.
The U.S. Air Force is like the rest of the military at this point. An evil tool used by the cabal to further their power.
Let the cabal degrade it.
It’s been straight downhill since the NY Times declared God is Dead. Without God, the only source of morality is man himself, and he’s a damn poor judge.
Bill Clinton would have been about 20 years old then, Hillary about19. Both young, smart, good students at good colleges, absorbing the aura of the world around them, including the proclamation from our elite that God is Dead. It’s not a coincidence that the Clintons ushered in a new era of political corruption. Our society was primed for it by the time they were in a position to run. If the Clintons didn’t exist, it would have been someone else.
I’m utterly irreligious, but I’m smart enough to know that without a belief in God, man becomes a God in his own mind, serving himself. America’s descent into autocracy is now inevitable. They only choice now is do we descend into a left-wing, Marxist autocracy or a right-wing autocracy.
It was as though the Soviet Union was collapsing all over again…
with fewer documented deaths than the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot.
And, the possibility of a Prince Prigozhin in White Russia (Byelorussia, aka Belarus)- because that’s how small-hatted mercenaries roll.
He wanted to blood avenge his friend Tatarsky, this Middleman mafioso at war with his Family kin in America. From a street convict to a billionaire MIC, against a Kagan who never picked up a gun.
(Collated from MoA and Sundance comments.
Intelligent Dasein:
“Prigozhin is a Russian and that he is acting within the Russian historical tradition.
The analogues of Prigozhin’s Rebellion are not to be found in 1917 or 1905, but much further back, in the uprising of Stenka Razin (1670) and in Pugachev’s Rebellion (1773).
That curious mixture of brigandry with populist politics (so misunderstood by people in the West); those ill-fated and quixotic marches upon Moscow, chanting death to Tsars and bureaucrats; the gathering and then exile of mercenary forces sympathetic to the reform but equally and patriotically in love with the motherland—it has all happened before.
This seems to be the way in which the Russian soul expresses itself in tense moments, just as surely as no American can get angry at his government without the echoes of the Tea Party and Declaration of Independence ringing in his ears.”)
Dagnabit. Apologies, posted Dasein without looking at the comments first.
I’d also posted a comment once before without crediting it to Simplicius. No manners, no manners at all.
No worries. Thank you for reading.
You are most kind. I found it quite moving.
Remember how, before 2001, we knew nothing, really, about the obscure Muslim world? Then, we put our heads together and learned very quickly. Arabic phrasing entered the lexicon.
Now, at last, mysterious Russia and inscrutable China have entered the chat.
Such a sumptuous feast is laid before us! We might do well, well indeed in a multipolar world, especially if we remember our Indo-European and Greco-Roman roots.
Prigozhin is Acting Within Russia’s Historical Tradition
Thus far, no one has understood the significance of Prigozhin’s Rebellion nor hit upon the true and accurate interpretation of these events. Prigozhin has been pilloried as egotist screaming for attention or a traitor in the pay of Western intelligence agencies. Both of these claims partake of a highly occidental worldview which does not comprehend the cultural antecedents of Prigozhin’s actions. On the contrary, I say that Prigozhin is a Russian and that he is acting within the Russian historical tradition.
The analogues of Prigozhin’s Rebellion are not to be found in 1917 or 1905, but much further back, in the uprising of Stenka Razin (1670) and in Pugachev’s Rebellion (1773).
That curious mixture of brigandry with populist politics (so misunderstood by people in the West); those ill-fated and quixotic marches upon Moscow, chanting death to Tsars and bureaucrats; the gathering and then exile of mercenary forces sympathetic to the reform but equally and patriotically in love with the motherland—it has all happened before. This seems to be the way in which the Russian soul expresses itself in tense moments, just as surely as no American can get angry at his government without the echoes of the Tea Party and Declaration of Independence ringing in his ears.
Prigozhin gave voice to broad undercurrent in Russian society that, while very loyal to the government, wants to see the war prosecuted harder and burns with indignation at every brother Russian who dies in battle while the government plays it safe. Not wanting to appear contentious, they keep their thoughts to themselves until they explode in a great swing in the opposite direction, bringing vengeance and chastisement upon Moscow whom they view as a prodigal son. It is the style of the sudden catharsis, the style of the pogrom, the Russian style.
In each of these explosions a local hero steps forth onto the stage of history, moved towards an end that cannot hep but result in his personal destruction, he impels, focuses, and clarifies all the hidden needs of the Russian heart. We don’t excuse their misdeeds, but we redeem somewhat of their memory in museums and songs, for we are sympathetic to their passion. The same fever burns within us. Razin, Pugachev, Prigozhin—their names belong together forever.
While the West propagandizes itself with tales of Prigozhin’s ego or with utterly baseless calumnies about his subversion by Western intelligence (because that is according to its nature), Russia has been fortified by Prigozhin’s fever, even if he was fated to play the role of the evil humor.
Half hero, half criminal, all Russian—Prigozhin. Remember him with mercy.
One thing is for sure: the Russian people are united in this war effort. Even western regime media is unable to report any significant Russian dissent, whether real or fake. Prigozhin’s gambit doesn’t change that. Perhaps it clarifies it.
They weren’t cheering Pringles, they were cheering the Wagner soldiers.
Russia United! by the judo master…who has also bought time to properly train up a million man army of wildly patriotic volunteers.
May this become Whites United, casting off the evil spell, and giving the women a reason to abandon their evil spell as well and come home.
Wignats have never considered Slavs, let alone Russians, as white, rather Asiatic subhumans to be exterminated.
Where did you get this? At any rate, it’s author may be even more accurate than he realizes. Not only were there Razin and Pugachev’s frontier Jacqueries, there were steppe outburst led by Ivan Bolotnikov and Kondraty Bulavin, as well. That said, it’s been a long, long time since Russia has seen one of these. Approximately two-and-a-half centuries, to be precise.
Indeed. We have witnessed History here, in this story of Russian Brutus and the Tsar Vlad the Just.
I am the author of that. I’m hoping it filters up to Mercouris, so I posted it in several places. If you have an email address for him please feel free to pass it along. I don’t know how to contact him directly.
Yeah it’s probably just Russians being Russians. Who knows what happened.
People jumping to conclusions reminds me of the NYT claiming to have knowledge from “insiders close to Putin”. In reality we don’t really know much about what goes on behind the Russian curtain.
Col. MacGregor expressed somewhat similar thoughts in his latest commentary. He did not refer to past historical figures, but rather the impatience of the Russian military and people to take the clear offensive now that the Ukrainians and their handlers are clearly rocked back onto their heels. Putin and his inner circle have been playing cautiously given the potential for NeoCon led fuckery such as trying to destroy the major nuclear power station that the Russians control and the lasting contamination from radioactive releases, and this is understandable. But when under such threats, permitting your enemies the luxury of escalation dominance may actually increase the danger, particularly as their desperation is at a fever pitch.
Prighozin’s play, whatever personal score-settling may be present, does not vitiate the logic of capitalizing upon the enemy’s weakness, loss of morale, and overall lack of a path to meaningful victories to switch over to offense to collapse the enemy as quickly and as comprehensively as possible in order to dispense with any sort of “frozen conflict” (as seems to be an increasingly popular notion in NATO), and to establish “facts on the ground” which determine any further actions, whether military or diplomatic.
MacGregor link:
https://youtu.be/VugfuaG_0nc
Russians are not buying Biden’s disavowal of US/NATO involvement. Maybe posturing, maybe not. In any event, I think that the Ukrainians are about to get their doors blown off.
For tne Ukrainians, this situation is a further confirmation of Kissinger’s trenchant words, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”.
“In each of these explosions a local hero steps forth onto the stage of history, moved towards an end that cannot hep but result in his personal destruction, he impels, focuses, and clarifies all the hidden needs of the Russian heart. We don’t excuse their misdeeds, but we redeem somewhat of their memory in museums and songs, for we are sympathetic to their passion. The same fever burns within us”
WE used to do the same, Lee, Jackson, Pickett.
I used to live near William Henry Harrison’s tomb, and a couple miles up the road was a statue of Tecumseh.
I cannot fathom this Biden stuff will lead to anything, for it follows the same pattern. The media appeals to the Right with the perpetual mantra of: You [the Right] are the underdog, but cracks are appearing! Things are about to turn around!
The media appeals to the Left with: You are good, and they are evil. And we are soooo close, let’s get rid of this evil and get it done.
This keeps both groups involved in the same march towards perdition.
If the Left truly wanted to remove Biden, they know how to agitate their base and make this front page news. This is just more stuff to keep the Right from becoming completely disillusioned, and thereby a real threat to the State.
The WH press pool suddenly taking an interest suggests that this could be a move against Joe. They are making it front page news.
One of the blind spots of being a dissident who has tuned out regime media is that we often don’t know what front page news is. I dunno if that’s you, but it is often me.
That’s why I just got on NYT. Nothing but an opinion piece buried way, way down, from three days ago about how Joe is actually a hero for being a great father to a sick, addicted son. No joke – check it out. I think I saw it referenced here earlier.
The fact that defenders of the Biden faith, like the NYT, are starting to talk about it, suggests that there is a move to get Biden out…Biden has now a criminal defense lawyer, so that’s another sign..And Gavin Newsom getting into the race is a 3d….
I am being genuine when I ask, Where is the belief that Biden will be removed coming from? Since he was elected, people here have constantly said he would be removed. I am not calling out any wrong predictions; I am honestly curious. I have never seen the least indication that TPTB have any interested in exchanging their figurehead. Sure, the occasional passing comment on his age, but, beyond that point, I have seen nothing that would indicate this eventuality.
Why would the left want to replace Biden? He has been their ideal puppet since day one of his administration. For all of the talk during the 2020 campaign that Biden was a pragmatic moderate democrat in the mold of Bill Clinton, Biden has been a reliable rubber stamp for everything the left has put on his Oval Office desk.
Perhaps they doubt their ability to fortify 2024 sufficiently? Thinking which would be influenced by seeing his old age decline up close, and knowing that only gets worse, sometimes quickly.
I’m assuming there has to be a legitimate electoral base on top of which to fortify, that they can’t manufacture the entire thing out of whole cloth. I could be mistaken.
Oswald – this has been my point for three years! He’s the perfect puppet – Weekend at Bernie’s
The better question is, why does it matter if Biden is removed? If he is removed, he’ll just be replaced by a younger version of himself and AINO will continue its descent into the abyss.
….aaaaahhhhhnnndddddd there you have it.
The one time, perhaps the only one in our lifetime, someone not a puppet accidentally was elected they did everything but kill him (yet). The dude could have been easily coopted with flattery but, naaah, apparently picking the puppet is part of their kink.
You can have any politician you like as long as it is the one selected for you (maybe like Ford’s car, it only will come in black now).
washington has LONG been corrupt. Bill clintons first acts as president were to replace all 50 us attorneys with his own political hacks. the second was to get all FBI background check files on all elected and non-elected officials. they contained a lot of blackmail onfo. they coppied them all and sent them back to fbi.
trump was an honest rube who found himself in charge of a totaly corrupt organization. look at the criminality of the operations agiainst him. Clearly they will not tollerate any honest actor sent there, no matter who it might be.
in news missed by the media , the global government is consolidating their power . they will now be collecting taxes world wide. A “pandemic tax” through the WHO, and a ghia tax ,
https://peterhalligan.substack.com/p/anti-human-and-wef-graduate-emmanuel?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I guess Romney, Kerry, and Pelosi are happy that everyone is looking at Hunter and not at their kids who were also on the Burisma payroll. The Clinton Foundation, forgotten. The McCain Institute, never remembered in the first place. Yet in spite of all that, some people still wonder why fedgov can’t be fiscally responsible, or even more bafflingly, hope that it one day will be. Like if we just promote the right don to command the mafia then the embezzlement might stop. I am shocked, shocked, that there is gambling in this establishment.
Jeffrey Zoar: But a certain cohort of readers insist the system itself is just fine, if only we could get the right people in charge.
Whatever. Don’t mean to be a black piller; I just don’t give a damn any more. I have separated myself from AINO intellectually and emotionally. I have relocated physically. And now I view it all from a distance, with great detachment. Oh, I know it will eventually encroach on every area – I’m not a fool. But for the present I have removed myself from the worst of the daily indignities. I’m so much happier and at peace – why would I want to enmesh myself again in the feces-covered Gordian Knot that pretends to be American culture and politics?
Black pill is an odd name for intellectual freedom
Because 3g’s Great Escape is itself the inspiration. If she can pull it off, maybe some of us can too.
Took a bit of work, did’n it? I’m glad the Mr. finally saw which way the wind was blowing.
Alzaebo: My ‘escape’ was a lot of luck and a lot of God. But yes, it took timing and patience and money and prayer.
Heh.
Good to hear from you, 3g, when most everyone else, even here, still seems to be musing about the system – seemingly with some hope.
I too, have pretty much done exactly as you have. Complete detachment. Faith in the Good God helps, as does preparing your family in all ways you can. But when it comes to the political system? I can understand the urge some have to talk about it, but it is done.
I do believe there is hope – but not from the government.
Another answer is that no one cares. Things have reached the point in Washington where everyone shrugs at this stuff. Like the corrupt police precinct, morality has been turned on its head. Those not involved in shakedowns and influence peddling are viewed as fools, while the smash and grab people are high status. This behavior is now a form of ingroup signaling. Your willingness to take money and your creativity in doing it is what elevates your status in Washington.
Unless you are Donald Trump. Who has been proven time and time again to be one of the cleanest, least corrupt politicians in Washington. Who is caught in a revolving door of bogus prosecutions, for not dotting a few I’s or crossing a few T’s. Precisely because he is not a creature of the D.C. swamp.
Also not a pedo
Or a homo. Remember when Barney Frank’s gay live-in lover ran a homo prostitution service out of the congressman’s D.C. apartment? Crickets.
Trump was actually a hetero dude who said if you have money chicks will throw themselves at you and let you grab ’em by the pussy.
That’s practically a capital offense in the capital of GloboHomo.
Heh. Didn’t somebody just say “your creativity in doing it is what elevates your status.”
Lookin’ at Hot Bottoms Barney here. So that’s what young, idealistic interns are for- mommy is selling her kid for a ticket.
I have a theory that the old school kind of Richard Daley level corruption is better than whatever we have now. Removing parochial machine/nepotism politics is akin to having kids be in a sterile/clean environment from birth to 18 in that it creates unintended consequences. It allows for a more “med resistant” managerial type of corruption that is worse.
Does anyone here sort of get what I’m saying?
Being from the Chicagoland area I “grok” what you’re saying. As I said below:
“People will accept corruption with a wink 😉 or an eyeroll 🙄 IF government is providing the services they’re supposed to provide.”
And they’ll accept it if it isn’t blatant, out and out grabbing just to grab.
One of the problems is at a local level, there probably aren’t any politicians in the mold of Hizzoner Da Mare Richard J. Daley. Yeah, Old Man Daley saw his opportunities and took ’em, but he was a Chicago resident and homer who was PROUD of his city and wanted it to be exceptional.
Now? Well the political class breezes in, stays for six months, and runs for political office knowing (as the Brits say) bugger all of where they’re representing and the people in it.
It doesn’t help that “Goo-Goo” squishy headed liberals have eliminated the Spoils System and watered down the Civil Service requirements so that government employees are “headless nails” (drive ’em in and you can’t pull ’em out) with a pension. At least with the Spoils System you the garbageman, street sweeper, or clerk kept your job so long as your boss kept his. So there was incentive to keep the streets clean, the garbage picked up, and get the old dead tree in front of Old Mrs. Smith’s two-flat cut down.
Oh, and take sweet old Mrs. Smith to the polling place on Election Day and show the Dear Old Lady how to vote. 😉👍
But hey, Chicago just elected as Mayor an out-an-out Socialist who hates Big Business and White Folks so I’m sure it’ll turn out fine.
I get exactly what you’re saying. The big city Machine-style corruption could at least get essential things done.
A while back, I knew a fellow named Dave who had lived in Chicago for a few years much earlier in life. Despite being a conservative, Dave told me that Mayor Daley “kept the trains running on time.” (Wasn’t that also said of the notorious Mustache Man?) Dave said that regular folks were willing to tolerate tremendous corruption so long as the crookedness didn’t interfere too much with the basic services provided by government.
Therein lies part of the difference between the corruption of yesteryear and that of today. Under Machine-style malfeasance, public officials still had to maintain some bare minimum level of general competence (as opposed to being competent at the narrow practice of malfeasance and little or nothing else). Under our current system of corruption, a complete lack of general competence does not appear to disqualify folks from getting involved in the massive swindle of 21st Century politics. If anything, too much general competence would likely make one suspect in the eyes of the other swindlers. Keep the competence strictly limited to the swindling! Safer for all parties that way.
IMO, old style (White) corrupt pol’s were of a higher intellect than today’s minority pol’s and certainly, practical people rather than ideologues. They ran the government in the best way for friends and family, but were careful not to kill the golden goose. Today? Complete morons without understanding outside of ideology.
Here in my town, the wheels are coming off the city, but the mayor continues to harp about climate change and initiatives to “save the planet”. One of which is to plant 1M trees. Folks, this town is in the middle of the Sonoran desert and currently in the middle of the worse drought in memory since inception. There simply is no water to support such an effort and the people are so poor as to not be able (at the lower SES) to pay the town’s outlandish water rates. No problem, the mayor and council started giving away water to those too poor to pay and raise rates on the upper class users. What could go wrong?
I would say this is part of bioleninism but Biden himself is not from the bioleninist wing of the party. An ethnically Irish Catholic man first elected in 1972 has more in common with the Richard Daley types
They’re also selling your water to Saudi Arabia, for hay farms for its goats. Those watermelon farmers out west must be righteously pissed.
Daley also knew how to deal with, as Mr. Jared Taylor calls them, “our fellow African-American citizens”
https://youtu.be/olNN2iT41S4
Mayor Daley was a Boy Scout compared to what goes on now, speaking from long experience in Chicago….But Mayor Daley loved his city and wanted it to succeed….
As Z-man observed, the wily Sir John Glubb rightly observed that this is the last phase of a dying society..Where no official cares about the country…
Akin to the old time gangsters who became angry at their children for disrespecting the police. Their corruption was kept in a seporate box.
Though it would freak a lot of people out if Kamala Harris ended up ascending to the throne, I would personally be delighted by it. All of these politicians are just puppets anyway. We might as well get top comedic/buffoonish buck for our figurehead bang. Plus, as I have oft stated, Ms. Harris becoming president would quickly devolve into the most prominent advertisement against Affirmative Action we’ve ever had. I’m rooting for that special little harlot!
What would Harris taking over for Biden freak anyone out? The dems put her on the ticket, and the moronic dem voters voted for the worst ticket in the history of this country with glee.
I should have been clearer: it would freak out a lot of conservatives and dissidents. Still, I think Harris as president would freak out a lot of Dems voters too, increasing their sense of “buyer’s remorse” after so many of them voted for the current White House occupants simply out of hatred for Trump. Was anybody genuinely enthused about Biden back in 2020?
As to establishment Dems who hold prominent positions within the system . . . it might (privately) freak some of them out too. A Harris Administration would render the spectacle of American politics too transparent. Then again, given all the political insanity of the past seven or eight years, it doesn’t seem that establishment players worry much about the transparency of the spectacle. Who the hell knows? I’m proud to say that I am not privy to such minutia.
If it would freak out the Right, then Kamela’s a lock, a sure thing.
Only thing better would be Mike’s big swingin’ d*** in yer face. Make it a two-fer!
I know of a woman in Chappaqua who would be incandescent with rage if Harris wound up breaking the Presidential glass ceiling. Especially since Kamala wouldn’t be in that position without having (at one time) a modicum of sex appeal.
The Women’s War would be positively EPIC.
Kamela, Big Mike, and Hillary all fielding amazon armies.
Enemy combatants living and working cheek by jowl.
A national Housewives of DC would be to die for. Bigger than WWll. And we thought hippies or trannies were a big deal?
Sure a President Harris would be a good example of a bad example (AA), however what would that do when our demographics are indicting a majority minority population as early as 2050. Those minorities make good use of AA and will never part from it.
The demographic problem directly results from White people not having enough children. If we keep hoping for solutions from the top of the puppet food chain (which is not the same as the top of the authentic power hierarchy), we truly are screwed. The biggest issue here is that most Whites aren’t even aware that there is an issue. They have become oblivious to the fact that the European-blooded are the defining element of Western Civilization. It’s not a failure of our politics; it is a failure of our race. If anything, a Harris presidency might wake some more Whites up to the real problem. But it probably would have little or no effect in regard to that specific matter. Wittingly or unwittingly, Whites have rendered themselves a defeated people.
“Those minorities make good use of AA and will never part from it.”
That’s a salient point. I can think of only two examples in history where a source of power was relinquished in the name of “improving society”. When the Anglosphere relinquished the power to minorities (1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, Affirmative Action, the Windrush allowance in the UK, etc.) and possible the pre-Meiji Japanese prohibition on firearms and Western technology (and that one may have other intentions.
Whites may be the only group to eschew self-preference and act to their detriment in the pursuit of altruism. Minority ethnic groups in the States simply do not possess this character trait and will doubtless never give up that sweet power source of AA.
TPTB are clever enough to create carveouts for some within our group such a women, white homosexuals, the disabled, etc. I’m pretty sure this whole gender identity social contagion sweeping the nation serves the dual purpose of corrupting/weakening our youth AND creating further fractional carveouts for AA. If the carveout pretense was dripped it would be fairly evident to White Americans that they are the sole group excluded from the power of AA.
AA will not end until one of two things happen. The ever self-devouring Left finally excludes hetero White women (we see signs of this occuring) or the whole system is financially unable to sustain itself and dog eat dog days ensue.
That it isn’t blatantly obvious to them already, is a bad portent.
Absolutely correct. the web is filled with single white men who are going to the gyn, staying informed and working a job. they want a “future for the pales” but have no wife or kids. I give a pass to older guys who were victims of the 80’s and 90’s women who would not stop partying and working 66 hr a week because career. I see plenty of women at church and in my social circle looking for a guy and are having trouble finding anyone to have kids with . they have fertile years left but know they have to be realistic and get it done soon or the opportunity is lost.
It bothers me a lot that so many” thought leaders” like nick ,charlie , and milo are gay.
no future there.
You make a great point about Kamala Harris, but then I think back to when that Supreme Court justice Ketanji-hyphen-something couldn’t answer the question about what a woman is, and the collective shrugged-shoulder response, and I suddenly remember that we’re now living in a different world.
True enough. We’re in Clown World and much of what goes on is wildly inverted and illogical. Keep in mind, however, that the only time individual Supreme Court Justices get much attention is during their confirmation hearings. Now that she’s on the court, Justice Shaneequa won’t be in the public spotlight very often. Conversely, if Harris became president, she could not possibly fade into the background. She would have to be front and center in our political cesspool. The very prospect of it makes me chuckle.
What they might do is ask Kamala to resign and bring in Newsom. He would probably be a much more capable bad guy.
We know Kamala is power hungry and her soul and body for sale to anyone who can give it to her. While probably less capable than Newsom, she might even more dangerous than he is. She has no shame. Not only is her past with sleeping for jobs well known, but she runs around claiming to be black despite not having black ancestors.
While her becoming President might be amusing, it will be very sad. If I’m really optimistic, maybe it finally wakes normal people up to the reality we are truly AINO.
Biden’s corruption also means the Ukrainians and Chinese can put the arm on him anytime they want. Just quietly threaten to reveal the extent of the corruption to the right news sources and behold, $100 billion can be sent your way with no strings attached.
I’m reminded of the Abscam sting operation in 1979. Standards of conduct and standards of investigation and prosecution have since indeed fallen grievously. Now people just respond with a cynical sigh and shrug.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam
Looking back on it, of course Arab bribes were singled out as a problem because for the only group that matters, it was a problem.
To me, the most interesting thing about today’s post is that it highlights a piece of metadata that I believe has important implications. When corruption exists, those who are in a position to know about it, always do know about it. There is no naivete within the affected circle, by definition. To be naïve about these matters is simply to confess one’s non-membership in the group.
This leads directly to the conclusion that the Efficient Market Hypothesis applies in the field of historical truth. There are no major surprises coming at us out of history like a blast from the past, because the market has already weighed and measured historical claims and rejected the ones that are obviously false. The truth always outs; alternative versions of history wither under critical scrutiny in part because the energy necessary to maintain them (i.e. the personal cost of living in denial) is far, far greater than the utility of believing them. Thus, in the broad sense, history is self-correcting and the official versions of history are more or less correct. I believe that Jesus Christ walked in 1st century Palestine, that Oswald killed JFK, and that al-Qaeda perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, I believe anybody who says otherwise is full of it.
But that immediately raises the question of how the latter is possible at all. If history is self-correcting, and if the costs of living in denial are so high, how did it come to be that the world is filled with people who believe all manner of bizarre claims and are perfectly comfortable with their “conspiracy theories”? It goes back to what I said in the first paragraph. Just as is the case in finance, the efficient market for historical truths only really applies to those with “skin in the game.” Those who need to know the truth about a particular matter will know it, while those who have only casual concern about it will not be acquainted with any factual limitations upon their fancy; and where there are no facts, sentiment reigns. You can even reap great psychological and even financial rewards for trafficking in untruths when the sentimental payoff is substantial.
Therefore, we have two opposing forces operating throughout society. There is a kingdom of facts where an efficient market for truth operates, and there is a kingdom of sentiments where the psychological needs of believers are managed. Whenever some dramatic change takes place in the life of a society or an individual, you can be sure that it was not some de novo event occurring without a precedent, but that it signifies a shift from one domain to the other, i.e. from facts to sentiments or from sentiments to facts. Likewise, many misunderstandings between people are reducible to the difficulties of communicating across domains. When one person wants an answer and another wants a reason, the fiercest mutual antagonism occurs even without anyone meaning harm.
So, to get back to the Bidens and why this is all coming out now, the fact of Biden corruption, already well-known to market participants, is now acquiring relevance to a much broader circle of society, due to the latter developing “skin in the game” as the costs of policy errors begin to add up, shifting their perspective from one of sentiment to one of fact; and as the curtain draws on the Biden regime, public perception begins to converge towards “history,” i.e. the true fact of his corruption, now indelibly recorded in the annals of perished time. It has all been a fascinating example of that mysterious transformation of present into past.
The hour is late, but a new day also dawns. The old and threadbare present, now past, makes way for a future. For a philosophical historian such as myself, the joys of finally closing the book on the 20th century, and the task of tallying up the receipts, bring a welcome sense of catharsis even as we steel ourselves for the iron days to come.
Kudos. This is an elegant hypothesis. Initially, what I was reading sounded problematic, as if it placed economics prior to culture, but the transition from fact to sentiment and vice versa is decidedly a cultural driver of history. A provocative hypothesis, It needs further testing to transcend its general “truthiness.”
This kind of discussion is necessarily speculative, but it’s interesting.
My intuitions are opposite of yours. I think the winner’s write history and that today we are living under immense falsehoods that may never be exposed, and even if they are, this exposure may be suppressed successfully.
But a higher level question concerns your claim that “history is self-correcting.” What evidence could persuade that your claim is false? I can’t imagine any, but maybe you can.
I ask my question in the spirit of good fun.
“…that Oswald killed JFK, and that al-Qaeda perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.”
Either that was a poke to get the readers attention, or it was disproves right there that “history is self-correcting.”
Dear Line,
The evidence would have to be of a sort that invalidates a priori global values, e.g. my belief that I am not now currently dreaming, and things of that nature. But we’re talking real Total Recall / Matrix-level stuff here, which is a rabbit hole we don’t need to go down. The point is that, within that field of subjective experience which we call normal life, statements about historical events are self-correcting for those with skin in the game.
The last part is important. People without skin in the game are free to opine in any manner they want. They can tell you they believe in Bigfoot or the Lost Continent of Atlantis, and as long as they aren’t proposing themselves as a naturalist or a geophysicist, nobody cares. However, even in their case, we call their utterances “beliefs” only by a sort of equivocation, for it is clear that they don’t really believe them themselves, at least not to the extent of being willing to alter their lives on account of them. Thereby they prove by their actions that either their beliefs are insincerely held or that they are of no practical consequence to them.
A thoughtful post. I borrow heavily from Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil): We’d love to be able to ascertain the truth (e.g. by studying history). At times we may have confidence in an account nearing certainty. Alas we usually fall rather short of that ideal. Nietzsche poses a far more interesting open-ended question however: Rather than try to ascertain The Truth® about X (which such often being difficult to impossible), far more insight might be obtained if we inquire “Why do I need to believe that X is true?”
Did I hear that something happened in Russia over the weekend? Putin had his dog Muffy spayed, or some such?
“Prigozhin’s coup was how the Russians got the CIA to pay for the next round.”
~Alfred, Clusterf*ck Nation
_______
(Tip to readers, the Zman has early thoughts behind the green door, hain’t got there yet.)
Col McGregor has an interesting take on this supposed coup. If he’s correct, look for a major shift in Russian tactics and a final assault on Ukraine.
The coup is question was *never* a coup, but rather a (violent) protest against the continuing tactics of the Russian generals conduct in the war. The point being that the war is dragging out way beyond reason given the military situation of Ukraine. Given that the Wagner group has done the bulk of recent fighting and knows about the enemy, there might be something to Prigozhin’s concerns.
Coup or no coup, Putin has been put on warning. As I said before a number of times, like it or not the clock is ticking on this SMO. Time is not on Putin’s side. Seems not much different from our own Vietnam days. Public attention and support is limited for any disruption to regular order.
The only reason I could see Putin wanting/needing to speed things up is to make it a fait accompli before the GAE can get further involved (either by support or directly). While his meat grinder does soften the Uke further, it also gives the GAE a chance to reload to the extent it can. I suppose there must be an inflexion point where further softening is outweighed by opportunity to regroup/re-arm.
The footage that our host posted on Gab was some of the more shocking I have seen. It gets me angry at the worthless POS s that are keeping this war going. Johnson, Sunak and Biden. All of the EU leaders. Garbage
I think you’re wrong, you think that Russians are like us. They’re not, they look at the long term and have very long historical memories. Ours is a gnat’s life span compared to theirs. They are a nation, not a collection of disparate strangers with no concept of volk or anything in common. I think the Russian people are in it for the long haul and will be patient with their leasdership unless something changes greatly.
This explanation does not explain the recent Wagner brouhaha, does it. It also ignores the escalation of the West (NATO) in Ukraine and gives such time to grow and perhaps succeed. But whether NATO is successful in propping up Ukraine or not, time = lives lost for both Russia and Ukraine. At some point there must be a calculation made of cost/benefit.
Not very different from the thinking involved in the Normandy invasion. Half of general staff wanted to go from Italy into the soft underbelly of NAZI occupied Southern European countries and bypass France. The other half wanted to bite the bullet and invade the most heavily protected front—France. The invasion cost an immediate 10k lives and the Allies faced a million battle hardened Germans in France in the race to the Rhine, but the war was over in less than a year. On the other hand, a lot of those bypassed countries fell into Russian hands.
The Left cheered the “coup” lustily because it allegedly weakened Putler. What, in their ignorance they fail to realize is that, were Putin deposed, he would be replace by a hard-case who makes Putin look like Pat Schroeder. There is no Precious riding to the Left’s rescue in Russia.
I suspect they are worried that when you pull on a string, everything starts unraveling and that special prosecutors tend to spin off in unpredictable directions. Since they are in complete control of the cops, they just decide to ignore it. Allowing some special prosecutor to go in and start poking around and pulling on loose strings could spin out of control and start threatening a lot of powerful people.
Yes. Because the special prosecutors have done such a bang up job in recent years.
“Another answer is that no one cares.”
There’s a reason McClean’s “American Pie” is so beloved and treated as near Biblical. America was a country once. The government was always corrupt and sinister to varying extends, but there was a people and a culture: Mom, baseball, and apple pie. It was real, no matter how they gaslight you.
Over the decades, bit by bit, it has all been dismantled. McClean’s song is really an anthem to that dismantlement, IMO, and a big reason why Americans of certain ages respond to it.
There’s nothing left to care about and we’re “generation(s) lost in space
With no time left to start again.”
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
You’re definitely onto something, fakeemail.
“And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.”
I know the song is about the history of rock n roll and the death of buddy Holly, but always felt it was about the death of America as it was devoured by the counter culture and globalism.
I agree. And incidentally, McLean said he didn’t really know the meaning of the song. Said it was stream of consciousness and automatic writing.
Many musical masterpieces–Handel’s “Messiah,” for instance–are that way. It is as if a much power is doing the actual composing and the composer merely holds the quill and ink pot.
“American Pie” may have been a warning.
Meanwhile, in Russia:
https://twitter.com/JoveMarie2/status/1673312544826572800?s=20
Where we would be if we hadn’t altered course or given way to the poz.
Reminds me somewhat of those Russian grocery store flash mobs that “spontaneously” break out in amazing patriotic songs with young attractive people. I am sure the linked one was a bit staged, but even so – compare what the GAE stages to something like that.
If the GAE regime staged something like that it wouldn’t be a rendition of “God Bless America” or “America the Beautiful.” The regime would have a choir of trannies singing a paean to the blessings of unlimited immigration, same-sex buggery, or abortion…something like that.
Right. But they’d be rapping, not singing.
Find video on line of the Scarlet Sails celebration Saturday night in St. Petersburg. Those are legitmate pictures of the mood in Russia right now.
Hard for me to understand why they would feel the need to be so corrupt.
There are so many legal/semi legal grift and enrichment opportunities on top of the already generous lifestyle provided to politicians by the government.
How many mansions does one family need? What’s the point of having a Ferrari when you are China’s bitch and there are no roads to drive on?
I guess that’s why I work a regular job like a sucker and not making tens of millions running pure scams.
Chinatown covered this:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=s1i3dB2qWbA
“The future, Mr. Gittes…the FUTURE!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDD1tW59Mjg
The original film Wall Street also covered the subject well.
Bud: How much is enough, Gordon?! When does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?!
Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero-sum game – somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply, transferred – from one perception to another. Like magic. This painting here? I bought it ten years ago for sixty thousand dollars, I could sell it today for six hundred. The illusion has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it. Capitalism at its finest.
Bud: How much is enough, Gordon?!
Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons; And what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own.
How much is enough? The question is an old one. It was even asked rhetorically by a 1st century man in a backwater Roman province. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8:36). And from one of his followers, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Tim 6:10).
It is wise, therefore, to conclude that there is “enough” on the one hand and “too much” on the other. But where exactly the line is crossed? Questions upon questions because the truth of man’s nature is that no answer suffices and there is always another question.
I like a paraphrase I’ve not heard often: “If all you want is money (wealth), that is all you will ever have.”
OS-
A great exchange in an all-time great film.
“How much is too much?” is and old question and there is no good answer. It’s been that way basically forever. The interesting question is why is the looting accelerating? Everything you point out is still available for slow, steady grifting, so why has the theft picked up? A desire to purchase hard assets before liquid assets are devalued? Is it easier and certain to go unpunished? Those very well may not be the reasons but there certainly is one.
Enough is never enough for whom enough is not enough.
You can never get enough of what you don’t need.
Panic before closing time.
It’s like in Britain, when the pubs were only open between 7PM and 10PM. A quarter to ten, the barkeep would call for last orders and everybody would hurriedly quaff down their pint and order two more.
I thought the Limies hurriedly quaffed their pints and ordered two more as standard operating procedure…
Limeys……….
All that tells me ,Merkin, is that you know next to nothing about my country.
Felix, the pubs used to close at 11.
If there is someone else with more, then you don’t have enough
“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” — Gore Vidal
I can’t remember if it was the History of the Roman Empire Podcast or one of Dan Carlin’s amazing takes… but one of them made the point about the wealthy of Rome in both the Republic and Empire phases.
The wealthy utilized their wealth in order place their stamp on the “glory” of Rome. Civic construction projects or paying for/leading Legions in order to conquer in the name of Rome. A man acquiring wealth for the sole purpose of doing so was mocked and ridiculed.
We saw much of the same in the Industrial Age, men of vast fortunes eventually turned from the glee of acquisition to a need to seek civic/lasting glory through philanthropy. Even my little town has a grand-for-its-size Carnegie library.
Unfortunately for us, modern technology has all but erased the national borders and distances that would normally channel that Great Man drive toward the nation state or ethnocentric endeavor.
Moneyed men, now reaching their middle years and naturally facing their mortality and need to leave a lasting impression, have a much bigger canvas they need to paint. Their post-acquisition phase and modernity require they embrace some global cause. The nation state or their ethnic group isn’t a big enough stage to perform on. The world demands their imprint, and damn the group or country which made their success possible.
Unfortunately for us, White people are a small percentage of the global population (audience)… and our mega-rich sons and daughters are more than willing to serve us, and our nations, up for the serving platter in their grab for global recognition.
Very interesting hypothesis Penitent Man.
I don’t think that is it. I think today’s extremely wealthy came up when there was no identity imprinted upon them. They are not well -educated in a well rounded sense. They sit at a trough. The 19th century men, gave glory to God, understood how glorious it was to create a country, were in competition with Europe to try and be its cultural equal … …
I just think this group is a rabble. For my money, the poster child is Mark Cuban. The dude is very close to being nothing more than a college boy slop with his shirt off and a letter painted on his chest. In his 40s he was doing this as the owner of a sports franchise – cheering on a child’s game. Of course, he got his billions in one of the greatest and most farcical transactions of all time.
These are small men. They simply have no idea what to do. It is quite funny that men who never even attended school had such a comprehensive vision beyond of what to do with their wealth. They were trying to bring America up to match Europe. Looking at the early life and education of many of these guys who aren’t really American, I just don’t think they even know that civilization exists, much less the responsibility
Mass legal immigration broke our lineage as a European people and nation. Once a new generation, not connected to that grand lineage, and little more than money grubbing FedNote aardvarks, got theirs, they felt no duty, obligation and had zero vision.
So, you get misanthropic children in adult bodies who don’t understand the implications of not telling HR and Pity Culture advocates to pound sand. It is called degeneracy for a reason.
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Suggested Biden family plot tombstone epitaph: Money don’t get everything it’s true, what it don’t get I can’t use
“You’re dead for a long, long time,
You just can’t prevent it.
If money can’t buy happiness,
I guess I’ll have to rent it.”
(Hat tip to ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic)
Another suggested epitaph for Joe Biden:
“Remember…ten percent for the Big Guy.”
You have to wonder if Joe was shaking down all sides in the Bosnian War. He made several personal appearances with bellicose speeches, swaggering and weird mind farts anbout “my son” even back then. He did have a bridge dedicated to Beau (who also had dealings with the locals), which seemed kind of campy at the time. The Joe of today would have shaken down Milosovic, but maybe the Joe of old did too.
My fun little spin on the Russian “coup”, submitted for your entertainment and entirely without evidence: It was a four way gang bang with Putin, Prigozhin, Xi, and even that other Z-man, Zelensky brought in at the last moment for reasons that will become obvious. The con is that Prigozhin’s Wagner group is going to Moscow to do a coup. Their Lada throws a rod conveniently far from Moscow but oddly close to Keeeeve. They call off the “operation”. Zelensky is then brought into a smoke filled room and told the real deal. See, now we’ve got all those Wagner guys staged near your capitol. I picture maybe Putin has Zelensky in some kind of painful Judo arm-bar at this point. Here’s what you need to do – call up Hunter and tell him you need him to bring $6B in cash real quick. Never mind what we need it for, we’ve got a secret deal going with Prig you see. Hunter gets a piece and there’s 10% for the Big Guy of course.
Hunter drives up in the bus full of cash, Zelensky is told to slag off to his beach house in Tel Aviv with a measly duffel bag of Benjamins. They explain to him that he will step down and a Russian puppet will take his place. Eastern Ukraine is now Ukrainskii Oblast. Putin, Xi, and Prig drive off in the bus headed for a resort in the Urals or even Iran (look up Ramsar). Hunter gets a duffel bag of Benjamins as well as one full of crack cocaine. The Big Guy already took his cut since the money originated in DC anyway.
It’s not simply that a culture of corruption breeds a culture of silence. The situation is far worse — critics of the culture of corruption will be indicted. Just look at what they did to Trump — they charged him with (at last count) 71 felony counts that could theoretically get something like 500 years in prison. They also indicted his political advisers, his lawyers, and his National Security Adviser. They spied on him illegally, released his tax records illegally, and sued him civilly.
Meanwhile Hunter rakes in millions in bribes, violates federal drug laws and federal gun laws, and gets practically nothing. Hillary gets off with nothing for destroying tens of thousands of classified e-mails while under subpoena. Remember way back in 1993 when she had “accidentally” had FBI files of opponents in her living quarters in the White House? Crickets.
The culture of corruption in Washington has reached the very least that will happen to anyone who blows the whistle is that he will lose his job, get sued, and probably arrested. I have no doubt they are also willing, like the NYPD in the Serpico case, to literally kill you as well.
After all, Epstein committed “suicide” while supposedly under 24-hour watch just when the cameras monitoring him somehow “malfunctioned”… right?
Many times Tucker Carlson pointed out that the only people getting in trouble are the ones telling the truth.
Are TikTok videos allowed on the forum?
I was sent a video from “Casino”, that substitutes Trump and DeSantis for Pesci and Deniro.
If anyone has it, and it’s ok, it’s worth a watch.
Something to grin at in shit times.
It’s actually worse than just rank corruption in DC. The Stasi is complicit in the lawlessness both by omission (looking the other way on Hunter) and commission (arresting Trump but not Brandon). There is no feedback mechanism to either fix this or provide hope of a better future. And it’s now a small step to going full Gestapo and locking up innocent people (Jan 6th) or escorting them into gas chambers.
And no, Dan, voting harder is not going to miraculously cure this because the fix is in via Fortified For Democracy vote manufacturing, and the Deep State cabal runs everything anyway from the shadows. Dangling the carrot of an election miracle is just leading people off a cliff of disappoint. But normie cannot wake up until the 2×4 of reality hits him upside the head.
After the 2024 election, despair will yield to anger as the economy falls into recession/depression. People will take to the streets in protest and rioting. Mayhem and wanton violence will pit the bottom of the social pyramid against each other (don’t be in a big city). DC will respond my unleashing the jackboots and finalizing the new tyranny. A lot of good men will get sucked into secession/militia movements. Mutual annihilation of alphas will keep the corruptocrats in DC safe and secure. At least, that’s what they hope.
Smarter, not harder.
The real question is why the Bidens or others take illegal bribes. They can do it perfectly legal if they weren’t so lazy.
After leaving office, congressmen, senator and their high-level staff members – and family members – are well rewarded via speeches, consulting gigs, boards of directors, etc. Presidents have their foundations. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and they’re all legal.
I suppose that Biden’s issue is that he wanted to stay in office for the power and get the money. Unfortunately for him, his son was such a screw up that he made a stink. Still, Joe had four years to gather some money between 2016 and 2020.
I guess that he was just too greedy, even by DC standards.
Regardless, my main point is that the corruption is now institutionalized. It’s perfectly legal, which definitely means that we’re a mob-run country now.
This may also be the reason why those inside the State want Biden out of the way. Smart criminals know being too obvious is bad for the criminal enterprise. You don’t flout your crimes, as that makes the cops (even the dirty ones) look bad in public. They had hours of John Gotti on wiretaps complaining about Sammy Gravano being too obvious about opening various shell companies to move around the contracting money. Hunter could have done everything he did and worse, if he only hadn’t had a penchant for recording it all, and forgot the device he recorded it on, leaving it with a decent citizen. My guess is even the people charged with running interference for him are exhausted at this point. The Secret Service guys thought Roger Clinton and Billy Carter were headaches. What the hell does that make Hunter? The people in D.C. will play along, but eventually some pesky kid shouts that the emperor is naked, and it gets embarrassing.
“My guess is even the people charged with running interference for him are exhausted at this point.”
Could be, but the assumption has to be that they also get a little something off the books as well.
Biden really is stupid, and that likely is the case with Hunter and James as well. Everything you wrote is spot on, and indicates either a lack of impulse control or intelligence and in this case it likely is both.
I’m curious, what do these countries and companies actually get when they funnel funds to Joe and Co? I give you 50 million and you give me, what?- a chance to bid on a government contract or a no bid contract? Can anyone provide an actual example?
> Can anyone provide an actual example?
Dude, have you SEEN how much money is sent to other countries via “foreign aid”? Heard about the Ukraine? Even the most egregious example of Biden bragging about getting the prosecutor fired he immediately freed up a billion dollars to the Ukraine government (and who knows where that money went to disappear.) At this point, the State Department is basically the World Bank for corrupt politicos and their friends.
Sure. Burisma was involved in shenanigans, the “take the money and buy a flat in Switzerland” kinda thing. The gubmint caught on and appointed a prosecutor. The guys caught with their hand in the till “hire” Biden’s son for $800k a year for a No-show job, and The Big Guy holds up a $1billion aid package unless the prosecutor gets fired. The prosecutor got fired and the administrative holdup on the billions in aid got cleared up. It’s Richard M Daley stuff. Like that campaign aid who got caught calling some business and saying “its a shame you haven’t made your contribution to hizzoner’s campaign. Its be a bigger shame if your garbage stopped getting picked up.”
“Biden really is stupid…”
Stupid or just selfish and devoid of any moral conscience? Sociopathy.
President of the United States, wealthy, flies all around the world, few mansions, women. Stupid? At this point in his life, age related dementia.
He was allowed to sniff minors to his heart’s content.
Book deals – another favorite payoff method. How many $millions have the Clintons and Obamas collected on deals for books by some ghostwriter that nobody ever read?
That’s unfair. It’s my understanding that some of them sell into the high 3, or even low 4 digit range 🙂
The Bidens forgot The First Rule of Politics:
Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
After leaving office, congressmen, senator and their high-level staff members – and family members – are well rewarded via speeches, consulting gigs, boards of directors, etc. Presidents have their foundations. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and they’re all legal.
The problem is of course you need to be satisfied with your take. President Puddinhead can’t, or won’t be.
Perhaps it’s because his remaining son is a complete and utter screw-up, and I’m being polite. He may be in office to protect him and eventually provide for him, except his son seems to be a modification of the famous footballer’s quote: “90% of my money I spent on hookers, drugs, big houses, and fast cars. The other 10% I wasted.”
As I posted before, I’m from the Chicago area. People will accept corruption with a wink 😉 or an eyeroll 🙄 IF government is providing the services they’re supposed to provide. Every alderman (sorry, alderperson 🙄) is told to keep their seat in their ward:
– Get the garbage picked up
– Get the streets plowed after a snowstorm
– Fix the potholes that pop up after we salted the Hell out of the streets cleaning them
– Get things like broken streetlights and such fixed.
Old school pols knew further the REAL meaning of the phrase “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” That is, be very leery of someone you don’t know who suddenly shows up wanting something. Pro tip, they’re a Fed looking to entrap you.
Today? What is government providing me? And with the naked corruption? An old school pol would feather his nest but not draw too much attention. A new Oldsmobile or Buick every few years, a kitchen remodel for the Missus, perhaps a simple pool and deck behind the bungalow for the kids. Line up a sweetheart deal on tuition for Junior when he went of to State U. Maybe buy a little lake house to sneak off to in the summer and play poker there with his cronies.
Now? Hell, these idiots practically scream “HEY! I’m stealin’ stuff here!” They’re stupid enough to flaunt, like Nanny Pelosi, a multi-million dollar home with a freaking $5K freezer stuffed full of $10 pints of ice cream.
I respect the mob more. At least in Goodfellas they iced the guys who went out and spent big money after the Lufthansa heist to take the heat off the rest of the crew.
To close, my favorite example of the Pigs Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered idiom:
There once was a pumped up, self important Alderman in Chicago named William Beevers. Ol’ Will was a crooked, pompous windbag who christened himself “The Hog With the Big Nuts”.
(No points awarded for guessing the racial group Ol’ Will belongs to)
Ol’ Will liked gambling. So much so, that in a contemporary story about him he “siphoned off thousands of unreported dollars — $226,000 worth — in campaign money to pay for gambling debts racked up at the Horseshoe Casino and other personal expenses and did not report the spending.”
Ended up with six months in the Federal Pokey for Tax Evasion and paid a $10K fine.
That’ll teach you to obnoxiously spout off about yourself. One hopes other folks in Washington DC learn that too.
Spot on, mmack.
Michael Bloomberg was right for all the wrong reasons when he suggested the strongman of China needed public approval. Daley wasn’t even an outright dictator. The city overwhelmingly elected his son almost a generation later in the hopes he could make Chimpcongo function again. He kind of did, too, although it is gone forever now.
To add, my favorite Daley story, from my aunt, one of the remnant Republicans who worked for the city during that time:
The mayor would give city employees a turkey for Thanksgiving and a ham for Christmas every year. My aunt eventually got incensed about it and one year refused her Thanksgiving bribe.
The city employee who delivered the turkey told her, “lady, I don’t care what you do with it, but you will take the turkey.” She knew he meant business and took it from him.
Imagine living in a time where (a) that happened and (b) some people still thought it wrong.
$5,000 freezer? Hah. You are off by an order of magnitude. They live at a very different level than us, so much so that we hear about their extravance and subconsciously reduce their profligacy. Nancy’s freezer was probably more in the $40,000 range with install and finishes.
Yes. Power AND money. Politicians used to have to choose one over another. Close paraphrase of George Wallace: There’s only two things that matter in life – power and money; and I’ve never cared much for money.
Yeah, I think that was the issue here. Biden wanted the millions and to stay in office with its power and limelight.
The guy really is awful. Even Clinton waited until after leaving office to get his millions.
And right on time, the various military branches are offering a fast track to citizenship for illegals if they’ll only sign on the dotted line. Don’t speak the language? Snuck into the country illegally? Here’s a squad automatic weapon, point it where we tell you, and you and your family will eat three squares a day for the next twenty years. And any kids you have while on active duty are paid for by Fedgov, and also immediately become citizens. Jeb Bush was right, you guys sure are fertile! Your first targets are those people over there not wearing masks.
In this environment, whites need to ditch the individualist/libertarian/principle crap fast. Contra Kevin MacDonald and others, pathological altruism and fierce individualism are not inherently white traits. Quakers, protestants, and some dissenters and immigrants to Yankeedom and the Midlands have traditionally adhered to this, but “pressure bursts pipes” and busloads of illegals and minorities howling for their children’s blood is going to wake up everyone but the maddest and richest, and these people are our worst sworn enemy above and before everyone else. I think Hunter Wallace called these traitors “Grachites,” or something to that effect.
We need to take our cues from the Borderlanders, Tidewaters, and Appalachians. Get clannish, monkeywrench their game in a million ways. Build genuine counterculture: no cable, only pre-Revolution entertainment, homeschool if you can; dissemble and lie in public if you have to as well as any Vietcong ever did (another good example.) Fight asymmetrically, high value, low cost, to demoralize them. And remember, if you get jury duty, take it seriously before trying to get out of it. According to my state’s law, “jurors cannot be punished for their verdicts whatever their reasons may be.” You may be the only thing between some Rittenhouse and the gallows; or (even though he was probably a POS) a Derrick Chauvin, who still didn’t deserve that.
The mention of steroids in sports is also apt. When the other party is cheating, and you’re not, you’re at a disadvantage. So cheat to win, whenever and wherever you can. We’ll come up with the fairytale to explain why the gods were on our side after we win, if we do.
“According to my state’s law, “jurors cannot be punished for their verdicts whatever their reasons may be.””
Don’t interpret that too broadly. Jurors are instructed by the judge. He also has asked the jurors whether they could decide based upon the facts—not the law, which is the judge’s purview. What I’ve seen and read is that jurors *are* punished when they open their mouths and discuss “jury nullification” or the validity of the charges, or the harshness of the penalty, etc. In short, anything but the facts as presented to them during trial. And don’t kid yourself, the juror in question is more often than not “ratted out” by fellow jurors who don’t like that he disagreed with them and hung the jury.
You should of course vote your conscious, but don’t be stupid about it. Understand what will happen and keep your rationale to yourself when it can get you into trouble.
“I didnt find the evidence credible” or “I think the witness was not being truthful” is about as safe as you can get.
Jurors are routinely doxed these days. It is safe to assume the State supports this but “jury of your peers” is part of the pretense of American “democracy.” I get most people here understandably have issues with democracy, but we don’t need to assist our enemies by pretending it actually exists, either.
The other utterly disgusting aspect to all this blatant corruption is the government’s high sounding morality about everything and the damned vision they peddle of the proverbial “shining city on the hill”. What an F-ing joke.
Substitue a ‘t’ for the ‘n’ and it’s no longer a joke – leastways not in SFO, and many other cities.
The American empire has entered the final phase where looting is the norm and decline is embraced. Everyone is grabbing what they can before the music stops and the party ends
Maybe, maybe not.
This all reminds me of the 2nd century BC roman empire. Everyone in the senatorial class was running rackets extorting money from foreigners. Prosecutions for doing so became part of their political process. Julius Caesar was under threat of such prosecutions for decades before finally marching on Rome.
The end result was autocracy – with a singular authority limiting (or concentrating) the corruption to a tolerable level. Their civilization lasted half a millennium after reaching that point.
“…a singular authority limiting (or concentrating) the corruption to a tolerable level.”
Sounds like Putin’s Russia. That’s the broad outline of how he got to be in charge.
At least in Putin’s Russia the fags aren’t marching down Main Street and drag queens aren’t reading picture books about anal to four-year-olds.
Not yet, anyway. Used to think the old SH quite was over the top, but not anymore.
“When we win, do not forget that these people want you broke, dead, your kids raped and brainwashed, and they think it’s funny” – Sam Hyde.
How do other nations bend a knee to this mentality?
Julius Caesar led to Augustus (a great emperor) to Tiberius (so so emperor) to Caligula (an insane emperor) to Claudius (another good one in retrospect)….and on to good and evil and mostly mediocre emperors. Not sure emperors as appointed through military force (Praetorian guard) is quite the answer we are looking for.
There is a reason it has sped up, though, DD. The GAE may collapse tomorrow or go on another millennium, but the smashing and grabbing is accelerating for some reason.
Z: “Fringe bomb throwers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are making noises…”
The raging fury of the Cluster B which propels the personalities of MTG & Lauren Boebert is simply fascinating to me.
Their emergence as movers & shakers in the GOP gibes almoast perfectly with an epic poast which our own board member FooBarr made this past Friday:
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=30176#comment-358905
[I strongly urge everyone at Z to learn FooBarr’s poast there.]
In particular, regarding Lauren Boebert:
1) Lauren Boebert does not know who her biological father is [the paternity tests say that her mother has been fingering the wrong guy all these years].
2) Lauren Boebert just filed for divorce from her husband [who didn’t want a divorce].
3) Lauren Boebert just became a GRANDMOTHER at the age of 36.
Those are 18th-Century demographics rot thar.
Absolutely fascinating.
All hail the omnipotent power of Cluster B.
We can hazard a guess as to what she did to get to (what she considers) the top. Ditto the Veep.
The Daily Mail has a new article about Kim Jong-un’s little sister, Kim Yo-jong, concerning how she’s both a psychopath and the ackshual brains in the fambly.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4163614/posts
I’m slowly starting to gain Strange New Respect for the methods of Henry the VIIIth.
PS: Yo-jong ain’t all that bad looking.
If I had a couple of glasses of Chardonnay in me, I just might…
Although she’d probably prove to be frigid.
Poor thang.
Clearly God intended us to have grandchildren at 36. Regardless of whatever kind of “modeling” Mrs. Boebert used to do.
None of this is tolerated if committed by Republicans.
As for Biden, he can’t croak soon enough for me.
What you talking about son.
The republicans are full participants in the corruption. Couple of examples – Romney had some of his people “working” in Ukraine at do nothing jobs at the same time as Hunter. – all of the big names in the R party have “foundations” that get contributions from foreigners – mini me versions of the Clinton foundations. Do you really think that foreign oligarchs think its essential to hear Ms Lindsay’s brain farts on every issue? Of course not , their thinly concealed bribes and extortion payoffs.
That id why it’s not a partisan issue. They all do it.
They all do it – except my rep / senator – which is why Mr or Ms ‘I’ on the ballot (read incumbent) wins the vast majority of elections – and why voting harder is futile.
Honestly, wouldn’t mind the graft so much if they actually implemented policies that helped. Seems in the past, there was “neutral” corruption – the road paving contract going to the brother-in-law’s company, but at least the road got paved. Now, it’s simply treasonous graft.
Africa wins again.
The accelerated looting indeed is a bad sign. While most of The Help in D.C. is far too stupid to know This One Neat Trick, you can get your ass that stolen cash is being converted to hard assets as fast as possible by the few who don’t go on wig-buying sprees (hi, Maxine!).
“One reason for this wall of silence is that this sort of corruption is so common that no one knows who is clean and who is dirty. Like the corrupt police precinct, the culture of corruption breeds a culture of silence.”
The reasonable assumption is almost all are dirty at this point. Stupid people in the Administrative State and The Help being moronic helps to facilitate the theft. You are correct in part that those not on the take are perceived as fools, but those stuffing their pockets aren’t turning lights off after their Mensa meetings, either.
So it boils down to:
It isn’t a matter of folks who won’t clean up the graft.
It is a matter of folks who cannot clean up the graft.
Unless someone were willing and able to go full Pol Pot on D.C.–and that ain’t happening–it will come down to “look at me, ma, I’m on top of the world!” Unlike Cagney’s world, this one will be in ruins and flames.
A minor quibble, but as soon as Cagney hollered that line his world became flames and ruin.
Yikes. I selectively forgot that part!
One of the concerns I have with “saviors” coming to the forefront to “turn things around” is time line. Seems that the rot is decades in development, whereas the best of democratically elected saviors has a limited life in power. Hence we have experienced at best a postponement and perhaps a couple of steps backward before we take another three steps forward into the abyss.
This is why I see our best hope being a situation as we’ve seen in places like Chile and Spain and even Ancient Rome—the rise of a “dictator” for as long as it takes, who can effect needed change and calm things down then step aside when the country seems stable enough to run its own affairs once more.
Of course, the examples of the opposite happening are legion, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu comes to mind.
Totally agreed but even a successful dictatorship doesn’t necessarily expunge the rot over the long haul. Spain is perhaps the most cucked European state. Last account was Chile had descended back into communism. The Roman Empire turned to foreign troops and, unexpectedly, it fell. Is Spain better than pre-Franco? Chile pre-Pinochet? Maybe, maybe not. But folks got a couple of generations of reprieve.
Yep, which leads one (logically) back to a discussion we’ve had before—is liberal democracy as the Western world has come to practice it a long term viable form of organization and political control in a world of godless multiculturalism and a virtueless populace.
So a strong man returning the government that became corrupt to a populace than allowed it to become corrupted is self defeating.
As little as fifteen years ago you’d have to venture out into the hills where the long white Mercedes with blacked out windows roams to find a Chilean who cursed Pinochet’s memory. American leftists who’d visit were disgusted by normal citizens’ refusal to join their toasts to his death. Since then the Chileans have been replaced—by their brainwashed-American children. The covid years were the absolute end of their civilization.
You’ve got Sulla and Diocletian in mind (perhaps sans the Christian persecutions). Sulla tried and failed. Diocletian’s reforms proved to be mere stays of execution.
Constantine it is, then!
I was thinking more of the very old Rome and the dictatorship of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. Hell, we’ve even named cities after him due to his example of citizenship.
I had no idea Cleveland was named after Cincinnatus!
Glubb, glubb, glubb. Not just a prescient essayist, but the sound the ship of state of the GAE makes, slowly sinking beneath the waves of history,
Glubb…glubb, glubb/
I’m floatin’ on a sea of love.
Reminds me of the scene in the movie Margin Call where an emergency meeting is called because it has been discovered the whole stock enterprise is going belly up soon.
What to do? Sell it all. Today.
Most will be left with worthless stocks and a hell of alot of turmoil in the future except for those at the top who grab now. That’s our country now.
Margin Call was a seriously underrated movie. It’s a good primer of the financial crisis and the industry. I was out of the industry long before then and in the real economy but the characters in the movie were pretty true to life.
Mike – I’m guessing the Jeremy Irons character sums it up accurately near the end: “It’s just money. It’s made up”.
He also said, paraphrasing, “Explain it to me like I’m a slow child or a Golden Retriever”, which is pretty wiespread in that industry.
Glad you threw in the Glubb reference. I think of his essay every time I see the news.
Corruption happens in other places. In Russia it’s tolerated until it gets too big, then somebody falls out a window or gets permanent food poising. Same in China until the corrupt exec or official gets a trip to camp concentration. Once a toady becomes made in the Clinton / Obama / Biden corruption machine, there is no limit to the graft. $ Billions can disappear and the DOJ will ignore it. More money will be printed and the whole thing will be ignored.
In the US and other Western countries, killing is gauche. You don’t get invited to cocktail parties by throwing people off balconies or dosing people with polonium. It’s not Who We Are. (Trademark)
With low-level exceptions like Seth Rich or Vince Foster or even Jeffrey Epstein, high-ranking people just get sued to death. High-profile assassinations may come back, like in the 1960s. Who knows when or if we’ll get back to that place.
“In the US and other Western countries, killing is gauche.”
Western countries have seemed to exult in mass murder abroad since at least the Yugoslavia bloodbath, and as far as domestically, the cheerleading for the senseless killing of Ashli Babbitt speaks for itself. Granted, The Help does the dirty but it seems the elite have no problem with slaughter as long as it is done by others, sort of like lawn work.
I think Marko means killing your equal level opponents/rivals is gauche. Killing the “other”, the hoi polloi or plebes is sport.
Thus, unlikely a hit on Trump – rather, lawfare to death which seems almost a worse fate fir his type. Contrast with Qaddafi (an upstart “other”).
Also, Western bloodbaths go way far before Yugoslavia.
The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” – Josef Stalin.
Somehow the US glorifies the latter and publicly abhors the former.
Actually, we do both.