Our Alaric Moment

Note: If you enjoy the sound of me droning on about things like affirmative action, then you will enjoy this show I did with Jose Nino. I am not the best interviewee, but this one turned out better than most of them. Jose is a good host.


If you were living in the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century you probably knew that things were not going well. This assumes that you were prosperous enough to have time to think about these things. You could see that the infrastructure was failing and that the empire was struggling to maintain order. On the other hand, the decline had been happening for a long time so things may have seemed normal. Without some way to compare the present to the past, you only have instinct.

Today we have mountains of facts and figures to tell us how things are doing in the Global American Empire. There was a time not so long ago when these facts and figures made up the bulk of news coverage. Economists became court wizards, explaining the latest unemployment figures or trade numbers. They were also called upon to bless whatever polices were being debated in Congress. In the Obama years, economic data was the way we measured the glories of the empire.

That has all changed now. One reason is no one in their right mind takes anything the government says at face value. People had grown used to the way the media biased the numbers depending upon who was in office, but the mortgage crisis cratered the public’s confidence in the numbers themselves. If all of the court wizards explaining the numbers could not see the mortgage fiasco coming, then why should anyone believe them about unemployment or inflation?

Then you have the general lying that has become a feature of government. The lying about Covid not only disgraced the medical profession, but it finished off whatever trust people had in the official numbers. If the government lies about how many people are dying from Covid just to move more product for the drug makers, the government will lie about how many people are working or the inflation numbers. No one trusts the numbers because no one trusts the people issuing the numbers.

There may be something else at work. Into the 1980’s, the numbers out of the stock markets were predictable. The markets went up as the economy improved out of a recession and the markets went down before a recession. In between the blue-chip stocks maintained a consistent price-to-earnings ratio between 14.00 and 16.00, which was the gold standard of the market. You could compare a stock’s performance to the S&P 500 to gauge the stability of the company.

That changed in the 1980’s with the new global currency arrangements. The P/E ratio of the S&P 500 as of this moment is 26.43. That looks high compared to the historic averages, but it is low compared to recent times. Just before the mortgage crisis the number climbed to 123.73. It collapsed soon after, but even in the midst of what they said was a near death experience for the financial system, the P/E ratio for the S&P 500 only dropped down into the historic average range.

The point here is we cannot trust the numbers if the numbers have no relationship to anything we have experienced. When the end of the world has the same numbers as what most consider to be a golden era for the empire, those numbers cease to have any meaning to us. Throw in the fact that most people do not feel like they are richer than their ancestors and those inflated stock figures carry even less weight. We are left to rely on our instincts to judge things.

Of course, our sense of things, that gut feeling, is the result of a many small things that we experience every day. Three-quarters of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction because they go to the grocery store every week. They see that despite the crowing about inflation coming down, food remains expensive. Granted, no one is starving in America due to a lack of affordable food, but it is that thing they see every day that gives people a sense of things.

Think about something simple like a pint of premium ice cream. A few years ago, a pint was sixteen ounces. “A pint is a pint the world around” was true from peak of the British empire until just a few years ago. Now a pint is fourteen ounces. The price for the new pint is not the same as the old pint. The price is more than the old pint. A few years ago, the old pint of ice cream was five dollars. That is about 31¢ per ounce. Today the new pint is over seven dollars or 51¢ per ounce.

That is a seventy percent change in the price. This is one example and probably not a representative one, given that butterfat prices drive dairy prices. Even so, this is something people see all over the marketplace. Shrinkflation is a word because it is a thing that exists. People notice that the containers are getting smaller, or they are getting less full in the case of things like snacks. Meanwhile, prices go up. This subtly tells people that something is going wrong.

This is probably why we are no longer getting a parade of court wizards analyzing the latest economic numbers. According to the numbers, Joe Biden should be dozing into reelection with an insurmountable lead, as his court wizards flood the airwaves with the good news about the economy. Instead, no one talks about the numbers and Biden is as popular as rectal cancer. It is possible he could lose the election to a man sitting in prison or be deposed by the secret police.

This brings us back to where we started. There were those in the Roman Empire who sensed the true state of affairs. No doubt some of them lived and died expecting things to fall apart, only to stagger on long past their time. Then there were others who internalized this reality and just accepted that no matter how grim things might appear, the empire was a permanent feature of life. The people probably just tried to make the best of things, even as they noticed the decline.

All of that changed on August 24, 410 AD when Alaric led the Visigoths into the eternal city, sacking Rome and setting off the collapse of the Western empire. The empire staggered on for a bit longer, but it was over at that point. All of those bad signs people had sensed probably seemed obvious in retrospect. Even so, the sack of Rome by the Visigoths was a shock to the world. The signs seemed obvious, but people still thought that the imperial order was permanent.

This is most likely the fate of the American empire. There are lots of signs that things are going poorly for the empire. Getting whipped by a collection of bronze age goatherds in the graveyard of empires should have been a wakeup call, but the empire is now picking fights with Russia and China. Meanwhile things deteriorate domestically, both economically and culturally. Yet, we stagger on, but somewhere out there is an Alaric moment just waiting to happen.


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Derecha Disidente
Derecha Disidente
1 year ago

Great post Z–one nit to pick. “A pint’s a pound, the whole world ’round”, is the saying.

Of course it refers to the approximate weight of a pint of water, which “the experts” have not yet figured out how to undermine.

KingKong
KingKong
1 year ago

I gave it maximum 2 years. One more year of absolute craziness, especially in the markets. Then a year of society waking up as the lunacy ends. Keep in the mind that lunacy comes from the latin word luna, which stands for “moon”. As in lunacy can be defined as being under the influence of the moon. We are experiencing a Saturnalia type of event, except instead of a festival of a few days, it’s a lunacy festival of a few decades. Saturnalia occured around Winter Solstice during Roman times – just when the moon was at it highest power.… Read more »

Kralizec
Kralizec
1 year ago

It for sure won’t be Alaric.
But it might well be Alarico.

Guest
Guest
1 year ago

If you were living in the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century, then you probably weren’t Roman. Virtually all the remaining Romans had left, either to the East or to estates in the provinces. When the Barbarians crashed the gates and sacked the city, the remaining inhabitants of Rome were mostly immigrants, include other Barbarians.

Of course, there weren’t that many Romans left, period. Centuries of hedonistic living and the accompanying decline in birth rates had decimated the Roman population. The future belongs to those who show up for it, and the Romans didn’t bother to make the show.

Templar
Templar
Reply to  Guest
1 year ago

Native Roman birthrates cratered in large part due to Roman women never really getting over the experience of acting independently from the men during the Punic Wars (which saw a World War-type shortage of manpower on the homefront due to the need for soldiers).

Bilejones
Member
1 year ago

“. “A pint is a pint the world around” was true from peak of the British empire until just a few years ago.”

Only in America. A Pint in England was and is 20 fluid ozs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pint

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
Reply to  Bilejones
1 year ago

The saying is actually “A pint’s a pound the world around.”

A pint is 1/8th of gallon, and a gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs, so one pint of anything with a density close to that of water will weigh very nearly one pound, which is close enough for cooking and baking at home.

Alex
Alex
Reply to  Bilejones
1 year ago

“A pint is a pound the world around” meaning that a pint is an 1/8th of a gallon of liquid by weight.

RoBG
RoBG
1 year ago

Z, you are a far better interviewee than El Nino is an interviewer. After a while the verbal tic “it’s like” “it’s like” It’s like” got on my last nerve to the point that I was just waiting for the next fingernail on the blackboard rather than considering his arguments. I know this sounds uncharitable, but it’s what would prevent me from subbing to him,

krustykurmudgeon
krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

I’m curious what your opinion of this is. Do you think affirmative action at universities wouldn’t be as big of a deal if the universities actually had a race conscious policy (which has been prohibited since 1978) but with a floor. Like what if Harvard had a policy that we will automatically admit any black student with a 30 ACT or a 1300 SAT or higher. For those below, you’re not getting in unless you have a wealthy donor parent. In that kind of situation, the average black would probably still score below the average white – but they would… Read more »

Mow Noname
Mow Noname
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

My Big10 school has/had admittance for applicants based on class rank and Act/Sat scores and the program applied for (Liberal Arts vs. Education vs. Engineering).

The problem was, once admitted, the top 5/10% of the students from the 100% black/ brown urban schools kept flunking out/ scoring at the bottom in the difficult majors (accounting/ engineering).

What would have been a “capable” black/ brown at Omnidirectional State was a washout at the Big U.

Mismatch.

krustykurmudgeon
krustykurmudgeon
Reply to  Mow Noname
1 year ago

the university of Texas system decided to do a program where the top ten percent of a graduating class got in automatically. They wanted the smartest and most capable blacks in there system.

The problem was is that the most capable black students often were getting rejected based on it. An intelligent black from Sugarland (nice suburban area near Houston) who was in the top 20% of there class but not the top 10% would often have higher ACT scores than a black in the top 10% in an all black high school.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

Correct – there was no adjustment based upon the school from which the student came. So a student from a school where a 2.0 GPA makes you valedictorian* gets in whereas a student from a school where 4.9 GPA puts you in the top 20% means you are out (or at least not automatically in). A caveat: with the UT system you were “admitted” to a general studies program, but not necessarily to a specific school (e.g., school of business, school of engineering). That was a separate admissions process and where the school likely corrects the ill-conceived “Top 10%” rule.… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

Haven’t seen “High School High.” But I have seen “Dangerous Minds,” a depressing look at dysfunctional urban school, claimed to be based on true stories.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

HSH is a comedy poking fun at inner city high school culture, so not depressing on the surface.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Mow Noname
1 year ago

Have you ever noticed that when it’s mentioned, usually in passing that (for argument’s sake) Harvard had 24 Negro graudates in the Class of 1960 or whatever, that rarely if ever does the speaker/author stop for a moment to consider the implications. Yes, beyond all doubt, there was widespread racial and other types of discrimination in the US at that time. The popular mythoogy of the civil rights movement would have one believe that Blacks were not wanted in elite universities. The “proof” of this was (and often still is) that they are vastly under-represented in the student body relative… Read more »

Tired Citizen
Tired Citizen
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

There are no hoops to jump through to make it work. Reality and biology are far too strong as adversaries. Blacks are not as smart as whites who are not as smart as Asians. Nothing will change this. Blacks who are pushed through entrance will either fail or the academic standards will be removed or reduced to remedial levels to allow them to “succeed”. This is already happening in nearly every institution. This is why you are completely out of your mind if you have a major surgery in ten years.

Bourbon
Bourbon
Reply to  Tired Citizen
1 year ago

Tired Citizen: “whites… are not as smart as Asians”

This is an utterly asinine assertion.

===============

PS: Note the lower case “w” on White and the upper case “A” on asian.

There was even an upper case “B” for Blacks.

JIDF/Antifa.

QED.

SMDHing.

Tired Citizen
Tired Citizen
Reply to  Bourbon
1 year ago

Give me a break… The capitalization for blacks was only because it was the first word in the sentence. The lack of capitalization on White was just an accident. I don’t know why I capitalized asians, I didn’t pay that much attention. You’re reading into things here.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Tired Citizen
1 year ago

Interesting distinction. I’m right in the middle of a new book: “Race and Evolution” by Sanderson. He uses lower case for whites and blacks, but not Asians.

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Tired Citizen
1 year ago

The jury’s still out on the Asian thing.
The cultural combo of cramming by rote and cheating/gaming the system may produce better test scores but that’s not the same as IQ.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Bilejones
1 year ago

It has often been remarked that Asians are great at memorization, but not as good at creativity. It may explain in part why they excel in areas such as STEM where such things are highly valued, but not quite so much as art, law, philosophy or literature where they do not tend to outperform Whites (they can still do well, but don’t really outperform that I have seen).

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

…and the ethnic group that smokes Whites in the Liberal Arts dare not be mentioned 😀

c matt
c matt
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

That ethnicity performs well in certain liberal arts. And I will concede they are great comedians.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

An SAT score of 1300 equates to an IQ of ~117. An SAT score of 1500 (what the top schools are averaging) is ~129.

Twelve IQ points is a lot. That black kid is going to be – by far – one of the dumbest kids on every class that he takes. He won’t be stupid, but he will be stupid compared to his classmates.

krustykurmudgeon
krustykurmudgeon
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

ok but the gaps would probably not be as big as they are now. Keep in mind that the 1300 would be the minimum so the median SAT score would be somewhat higher.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

First, no, the 1300 isn’t some bottom. The vast, vast majority of blacks scoring 1300 or better, in fact, score right around 1300. Only 1% of black score around 1400 and you could fit in a minivan the number scoring 1500 or better. There just aren’t enough smart blacks to go around. The top 20 schools will eat up basically every black with a score of 1300 or better if they want 10% of the class to be black. So, sure, whatever, say that they have to have a 1300. Works for a whooping 20 schools. What about the rest?… Read more »

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Except for the sportsball teams….

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Do those numbers corollate over time or has it become the case that a higher SAT score now represents a lower IQ than in the past?

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  KGB
1 year ago

SAT has been dumbed down. There have been a bunch of studies showing this most of which have been vanished. Were I less Idle I’d dig one out.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Bilejones
1 year ago

All standardized tests have been dumbed down because negroes. When I took the GRE back in ’94, there were three sections–verbal, quantitative, analaytical. The analytical section, which was dashedly difficult, was basically a series of word puzzle problems. It was eliminated, and I don’t think we have to guess as to why.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Bilejones
1 year ago

I don’t doubt that it’s been dumbed down, which leads me to wonder if a 1300 was equivalent to a 117, or a 1500 to a 129, in the past or now?

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Although I wasn’t black as a teen, I was very close to that SAT. I just looked at my records. In 1979 I tested verbal 610 math 670 (combined = 1280). This put me in the 97/98 percentile of “National H.S. Sample” but only 92/93% for “college bound seniors.” OK, so I was slightly > 100 for IQ. Ah, but there was a downside. You see, I was (and still am) lazy. I did not apply myself to my studies. Being a stoner and a drunk since sophomore year didn’t help. In fairness to the drugs and drink, in retrospect… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

So what?

It’s like athletic ability. You have to have the talent and the drive. But when it comes to IQ, blacks just don’t have the talent.

Btw, I don’t care. If we have separate communities, blacks could be as smart or as dumb as they want – just in their own community.

I’d don’t love my people because they’re the smartest on the planet (though we’re very close); I love my people because they are my people.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

“In that kind of situation, the average black would probably still score below the average white – but they would still be very capable.” In essence you are asking for a reduction in meritocracy as assuming that a second rate student is/will be as competent as a first rate student. Very capable is not “the most capable”. Aside from this, the “talented” Black you admit will enter into a department of studies and as noted, have to compete will more competent White students. There will be, as is now, strong criticism of the department wrt Blacks passed through or failed.… Read more »

miforest
miforest
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

what is the point of speculating on this? a change to university admissions policy is as likely as winning 5 poerball lottories in a row. will never happen.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  miforest
1 year ago

Au contraire, mon frere. If the change is likely to reduce the percentage of white enrollees, it is not only possible but probable.

ArthurinCali
1 year ago

Great interview on El Nino Speaks. Regarding the discussion had during the interview on bussing migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, here is a comical NYT article following up on the aftermath of the initial 49. It starts out with flowery language about the few migrants who are still on the island and how they have adjusted to a new life in the community. However, as with most NYT articles, the real meat of the story is found between paragraph 10-15. This one is no different as by that point the harsh reality of the influx begins to come out. ‘How Migrants… Read more »

cg2
cg2
Reply to  ArthurinCali
1 year ago

I’ve got a nice mexican fam bought the house next door. 1 car in the garage, 4 in the driveway and 2 on the street. Not sure how many live there.

cg2
cg2
Reply to  cg2
1 year ago

Oh and there is still room on the driveway for a refrigerator.

ArthurinCali
1 year ago

Meanwhile, as the Empire crumbles at home with failing infrastructure, civil strife and political kabuki theater on daily display, USNATO decides to begin opening Pandora’s (Panda?) box with a lurching pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. ‘Why NATO’s Growing Interest in Asia Is a Mistake https://time.com/6294499/nato-summit-vilnius-asia/ “NATO, it seems, is making a concerted decision to add Asia to its docket at a time when the alliance has its hands full managing Europe’s largest war since 1945. If this is the plan, NATO policymakers should step on the brakes before it goes too far. NATO’s new Asia-Pacific mission is remarkable for several… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  ArthurinCali
1 year ago

Japan part of NATO just makes sense. NATO even sounds like a Japanese word. Just add a “goma” or “shiro” to the end and I am sure some Japanese carries that name. As good a reason as any to include them.

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
Reply to  c matt
1 year ago

Japan has natto, which is pretty close in spelling.

It’s a traditional dish of fermented soybeans. It’s kind of slimy and funky, definitely an acquired taste, but I happen to love it.

I predict that one day, some new starlet will go on the Oprah show and mention how she eats natto for the protein and probiotics, and then all 10 million of the Oprioid women will rush out to buy some, turning it into an overnight phenomenon just like they did with that acai berry back in the day.

It’ll happen. Just you wait.

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

Supposedly it also has blood thinning and clot busting properties.

Not very tasty, though.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

Among Warren Buffett’s many Buffett-isms there is one about how investors should have faith in the “American tailwind,” which will (allegedly) carry along the patient investor. During his investing career it was a real thing, part of what made someone like him possible, but I’m of the opinion that we are at or near its end and American markets cannot be expected to be exceptional in the future as they were in the past. Kind of like the investing gospel that states “markets always go up over time,” which is true until it isn’t. How much time are we talking… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

“… markets always go up over time,”

I can buy that. What I’m worried about is a doubling or so of the market whereas at that time my dollars buy a third of what they do today. 😉

John Kochtostin
John Kochtostin
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

Ah, man, I could live out my days there. Bring my books and my coffee and I’d be set to think and write.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
1 year ago

To those interested in imperial decline, there’s a new 700+ page book that has just come out, titled “The End of Empires”, edited by Gehler, Rollinger, and Strobl, and published by Springer. The final chapter is titled “The Decline of the American Empire”, is written by Hans-Jurgen Schroder, and is about 40 pages long.

The book examines any number of empires both from antiquity and the modern era — Roman, Parthian, Persian, Hittite, Assyrian, Mongol, Ottoman, Mughal, Inca, Aztec, Napoleonic, Habsburg, Third Reich, Britain, USSR, and the aforementioned USA.

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

That;s a $90 paperback.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

If your comments are also going into moderation, it may be the Alaric Moment for the ol’ ZMan.

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

As a Jew Thing poster I didn’t notice the difference.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Ploppy
1 year ago

Six million upvotes… that seems a little high!

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  Ploppy
1 year ago

But how could the Wehrmacht click the like button that many times in the midst of a fuel shortage!?!

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

Thanks for the update. I thought I had somehow offended either yourself or WordPress.

Peter Wood
Peter Wood
1 year ago

It’s happening now. Was just in a small town in New England that five years looked like a postcard from 1880. There are dozens of hispanic kids now running around, motorcycles blaring up and down the main street at night, and private security has been hired to sit in the parking lot of the Shaw’s supermarket. They’re everywhere. In ten years they’ll start having kids, right when the Boomers are disappearing, and we will be faced with a sea of brown in any city over 20,000, and even in small towns, dozens of “families” with hundreds of people queuing up… Read more »

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Peter Wood
1 year ago

Springfield, MA?

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

Springfield hasn’t looked like a postcard since the 19th century, if it ever did.

Peter Wood
Peter Wood
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

Ah, would rather not say. But not Springfield.

FooBar
FooBar
Reply to  Peter Wood
1 year ago

I took a trip to a river far away from the Mexican border. Far far far far away – also in the NE. All set for a peaceful float to watch bald eagles. Then blaring music from Cartajegna on a bank. Up a bit and El Salvador throwing bottles and trash in the bushes and the bank. Up a bit more another bank full of Honduras. Went to my lady’s childhood lake hangout. Taken over by Orthodox. Went to a boat ramp where she could see out onto the lake and where she went as a kid. A gaggle of… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Peter Wood
1 year ago

I live in a state with very few mestizos but just here recently it seems like I am seeing more of them when I go out and about

B125
B125
Reply to  Peter Wood
1 year ago

Toronto is completely flooded with Hispanics. They literally appeared out of nowhere this summer. I had only met one Hispanic in my life (Mexican father white mother) before this year. Short, fat, light, dark, old, young. This old light skinned couple was speaking Spanish at the checkout line at Walmart. Beach day – over half the people are in their 20s speaking Spanish. Where did they come from? I have to admit that they are much less alien to me than Indians and Chinese, but it is another instance of random foreigners popping up for no reason. They are not… Read more »

KGB
KGB
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

Possible relatives of Auston Matthews there to take in a Leafs game?

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
1 year ago

Light bulbs. My gosh, light bulbs. All one finds these days are those horrid LED things that make everybody look like the Phantom of the Opera, and they cost enough to put a dent in your checking account. Well pay the helluva lot more for a far worse product.

A good synecdoche for AINO, the LED bulb–a ridiculously expensive mechanism for shedding light slowly fading to dark.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

Ostei: Granted, but they use minimal electricity and last a long time.

snarky
snarky
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

And … wiat for it … they come with “temperature” ratings ie warm, cold, etc. for the kind of light they shed.

Pro Tip: Shop slower; stop and read the packaging.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  snarky
1 year ago

Uh huh. And what “temperature” is quasi-incandescent?

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

I hoarded back when they still made them. Whenever one of my chicken-keeping friends needs a 100W I am able to oblige.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

“ And what “temperature” is quasi-incandescent?” I hear ya, but you’re too harsh. Incandescent is typically termed warm white, or 2700 Kelvin. The rating system is sound, but the (Chinese) manufacturers often cheat. So one brand is different than another. I have a large box of rejected bulbs in my garage. LED was foisted upon us when the Fed’s said we need to save electricity/energy and phased out most incandescent bulbs. However, now that bulbs are so cheap to use, I’ve covered my entire home—inside and out—with LED lighting. It’s cheap to run and quite decorative. My outside lighting used… Read more »

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

25 years my ass, I’ve been replacing these f***ers almost as fast as the incandescent bulbs.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Ploppy
1 year ago

I’ve noticed that too. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a massive improvement on the CFL bulbs, but they do seem to give up the ghost far more often than is claimed on the package.

Rando
Rando
Reply to  KGB
1 year ago

It seems to depend on the use. I have a lit chandelier that I put LEDs in six years ago and they still work. But in the garage I’ve had to replace a bunch. I think power surges are killing them

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  KGB
1 year ago

Cheap Chinese stuff. But it’s the electronics that go, not usually the LED. I suspect testing is not done by switching bulb on and off, but rather a constant on test and an estimate of time to failure.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ploppy
1 year ago

Agreed, Poppy. AINO is now so fake and ghey you can’t even trust its corporate advertising.

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Their longevity is much overrated.

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  BigJimSportCamper
1 year ago

LEDs do last longer than incandescent bulbs. However, they don’t last decades with normal use like their supporters claim. I’ve had a couple of LEDs burn out after just three years or so.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  BigJimSportCamper
1 year ago

One needs to separate failure of LED vs supporting electronics (voltage conversion). I’ve never had, for example, an LED on any electronics (TV, computer, stove, frig, etc) that has ever burned out. Most of these stay on as the device is always plugged in. No frequent on/off with the corresponding surges and heating.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

You are likely looking at millions of LEDs right now. Many flat screens use them for each pixel. Yes, they fail but rarely.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

2700K. Pretty close to incandescent.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Like most here, I’m a fan of Glubb’s The Fate of Empires. I’ll just list out the attributes of the final Age of Decadence: Defensiveness Pessimism Materialism Frivolity An influx of foreigners The Welfare State A weakening of religion We pretty much check ever box. Naturally, the US is under zero threat from other countries. We will need to destroy ourselves. There will be no Alaric from another tribe sacking DC. This will allow the American Empire to stagger on longer than most, and it also means that our decline and break-up will be internal. It’ll be interesting to see… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Of course, Alaric need not be from across yon border. He could be some grizzled paladin from West Virginia leading battalions of DR who’ve finally had enough.

crabe-tambour
crabe-tambour
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

I made a comment on social media lamenting the decline of Chicago and was promptly “corrected” by a guy who “assured” me that our city was, is, and always will be great. I looked him up and, sure enough, he’s a black guy–a guy who would probably chafed at things not too long ago. I guess that with the election of the bearded nonentity to the hallowed Fifth Floor, things are going swimmingly well. Z’s mentioning of Alaric and the Visigoths came along fortuitously, since I responded to my interlocutor by mentioning that the Visigoths thought that Rome was a… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  crabe-tambour
1 year ago

Their chain of command might be more real than you recognize. The community organizer in chief has done a tremendous amount of organizing.

crabe-tambour
crabe-tambour
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

Perhaps so. I needn’t add any more than the first two words, but perfunctory comments are perceived as “too short.”

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

In the age of drones such a thing is impossible

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

I doubt it. Impossible is a big word.

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

You make a great point. We had a continental sized island surrounded by to massive oceans. A seafaring people with an abundance of salt water ports on two coasts and a massive inland river system. When Rome fell, its drek was replaced by invading Germanic tribes: Lombards; Huns; Goths; Gauls. Its genetic stock was replaced. In America, there will be no such genetic stock replacement for European peoples. We are going to have to do it ourselves through determination. The crime of the leaders abandoning their own people and sponsoring their replacement is beyond comprehension. The crime of forfeiting such… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Maybe Quigley was right, maybe that character in Network, was right— maybe corporations are the new nations, corporate power the new god. Maybe we’ve already been conquered.

Or maybe I’m just the descendant of colonists rationalizing a nearly-lifelong feeling of disenfranchisement and alienation lol. This America sounds like a terrible place, those Americans— that nation of immigrants— sound like terrible people.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Debt funding is our DC; and walking away from it is its sacking.

Whiskey
Whiskey
1 year ago

Thanks to Z-Man or whoever that recommended Stanley Payne’s book on European Civil War 1909-1949. Very informative book, had not previously read on the Finnish Civil War for example. I think the parallels with the Spanish Civil War are strong. There, it was if I understand Payne correctly, the Socialist crazies who provoked it, the Communists wanting a National Front against Fascism. The Socialists were crazy because they were faction driven, each faction wanting more provocations against the Right/Center than the next to gain the upper hand in the war of the factions. Here we have a weak Regency, with… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Whiskey
1 year ago

The regime has to know that mass debanking is the end. Those subjects so treated will have little to nothing left to lose. But then I probably would have thought something similar about forced experimental injections, before it happened. Can’t say I ever really contemplated it, before it happened.

But in the case of debanking, that’s cutting off access to the one thing (money) that still props up the failing empire. The thing that allows people to overlook or tolerate all the other things.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

The two most dangerous men in the world:

those with everything to lose and
those with nothing to lose.

B125
B125
Reply to  Whiskey
1 year ago

Pretty sure AI could identify us all and debank us in an instant. Just by crunching the data and looking at certain behaviours and traits.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Whiskey
1 year ago

They first tested “debanking” on innocent little guys, to see how the big names would react. The first victim I remember was Martina Markota, who got it for being a Trump fan with a Russian-sounding pseudonym. She was a little-known burlesque girl and podcast guest, interviewed by a few of our guys for being a demographically unusual righty and getting locally (NYC) blacklisted for it. Her own internet show about art history peaked at about fifty viewers. One day, either right before or right after Ttump was elected (I forget), they shut down everything. She made some public pleas, “amplified”… Read more »

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
1 year ago

Historiography is a tricky subject that invites many ad hoc speculations and facile analogies. Obviously, America’s descent into the dung heap of history will not fail to bring to mind echoes of the fall of the Rome, but it is important for the sake of truth to understand whether these two entities really belong to the same order or not. What’s passing now is not an entire civilization but rather America’s unipolar moment, which was always an aberration that was bound to revert. But to confound matters, the civilization to which America belongs, the West, is also far into its… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
1 year ago

Nah, what happened is a hostile tribe who hates us monopolized our media and programmed most of our people to accept open borders and to worship backs and sexual deviants. Affluence and compassion enabled this programming. It’s really that simple.

Mr. Burns
Mr. Burns
1 year ago

“Yet, we stagger on, but somewhere out there is an Alaric moment just waiting to happen.”

Or instead of that the U.S. will slowly decay into 3rd world status which it is already in the process of doing and it’s military will slink quietly off the world stage without much comment.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Mr. Burns
1 year ago

I think this is the most likely scenario. And as the GAE decays, the hinterlands, populated overwhelmingly by whites, calve and become de facto independent states.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

That is happening now. It is hard to see things when you are in the midst of them. The open border will not work to abolish these all-white hinterlands unless they put shock collars on the illegals.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

It has happened in small steps: sanctuary cities/states (some re: immigrants, others re: firearm ownership); some regarding their own version of Fort Knox). What will be interesting to see is if any state decides to issue its own currency. If Texas, for example, were to accept “Texollars” for payment of property taxes.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Mr. Burns
1 year ago

J6 shouldn’t have been the Alaric moment, but in their hyping and exaggeration of it, perhaps the regime turned it into one?

btp
Member
1 year ago

Amen! Come, Lord Alaric!

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

Inflation department: here’s a “back of envelope” exercise. First it’s worth noting that among the many official gauges of inflation, they deliberately exclude food and fuel because they are “volatile.” Well, maybe. In today’s simple example, I’m considering housing and the cost of a gallon of gas. I use the Case-Shiller Housing index and a googled nationwide cost per gallon. Gas chart began in 1994 so: In 1994, Housing = 78.5, increase to early 2023 approx. 380%. In 1994, Gas = $1.00/gal.; increase to date approx. 370%. Ladies and gentlemen, nearly 400% rise in prices in thirty years is some… Read more »

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

I think the least obscurantist measures of inflation are items found at random, old pictures of grocery store sale signs, hobbyist catalogs, etc.

My grandma gave me an unused ticket to a Sinatra concert at the Sands in 1961. It was five dollars, a luxury price at the time. You were expected to wear a suit.

Two years ago I went to see an obscure turn-of-the-century avant-garde rock band’s reunion show at a local dive bar. It was $35. And “real” concerts cost hundreds.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Hemid
1 year ago

It was around the mid 1990s when concert tickets made a very sudden and very large jump, and never looked back. Like from $20 to $100, seemingly overnight. Somebody up there figured out people would pay it. Ticket inflation was slow before that, and slow since, but for a moment there it was hyper.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

The other issue, and the one that really counts, is the comparison to wage/salary increases. Yikes!

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

Strictly speaking, price/earnings ratio will be just a ratio, “dimensionless” (in this case, no $).

FooBarr
FooBarr
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

I was taught by brokers as a young buck that blue chip stocks PE range was 7 – 12. That was in ’94. When 7, back up the trucks or accumulate. When getting above 12, check your objective and either sell all, some or stop accumulating. As for the dollar sign, it is a ratio, so no dollar sign. Formally, it would be expressed as a ratio. e.g. 7:1 to 12:1 (7 dollars per share for every dollar of earnings) Not to be pompous as I am sure you know this, but to be complete. The GAE may be grinding… Read more »

ex-poster-factotum
ex-poster-factotum
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

No semi-colons in the ethnostate. No Richard Spencer, either.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
1 year ago

Beautiful post. By the way, just delete the dollar signs ($) in front of the price-earnings ratios and you can delete this comment as well. if you wish.

Mow Noname
Mow Noname
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

Dollar sign? I thought you were supposed to use an umlaut (“übermäßig”) or one of those funky “°” thingies Felix and his Danish buddies put over their vowels.

bob sykes
bob sykes
1 year ago

The fall of the “Roman Empire” is always a bad comparison. From about 300 AD on, the capital of the Roman Empire and the seat of the Emperor was Constantinople, which was the economic and population center of the Empire. While the western part of the Empire fell in the 5th Century BC, the eastern part endured until the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. AD. The government/state of Rome actually lasted from about 750 BC to 1453 AD, a period of 2,200 years. We will end up envying the Romans their unprecedented and never since equalled success. The Global American… Read more »

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  bob sykes
1 year ago

The Byzantine Empire probably came to an end in 1204. All that the Turks captured was the city-state of Constantinople, which everyone knew had been living on borrowed time for quite a while. But your main point — that the Roman empire endured for a long time — remains unaffected by this minor quibble of mine.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  bob sykes
1 year ago

Yes, technically correct, but who writes or cites Eastern Byzantine Empire stuff? What the West knows of Rome and the lessons learned come from the era of the Western Empire. Even in my university years, the Western canon taught, pretty much ended with the fall of “Rome” as in the city of Rome, albeit a one sentence explanation was added that the Eastern Empire lived on till 1453.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  bob sykes
1 year ago

There’s a Ship of Theseus issue here though where when does the empire stop being that empire in it’s recognizable form? A “Roman Empire” with no “Rome” seems like a stretch. It reminds me of the late Ottoman “empire” whose borders didn’t stretch beyond the current Turkish borders.

We’ll know it’s over when GAE has to concede some portion of it’s empire-proper, Guam to China, Okinawa to Japan, or something like that. It will be framed as a “victory for democracy” or some such, much like the U.K. carving itself up.

Mow Noname
Mow Noname
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

When can we give Puerto Rico back to Spain? Please?

Mike
Mike
Reply to  Mow Noname
1 year ago

I want to get rid of Hawaii too, give them their independence. We stole it and should give it back.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Mike
1 year ago

Actually, if I’ve read correctly Hawaii was bought. Mostly sold by the royals there. There was shenanigans via statehood, but not a colonial takeover and annexation. But I’m not certain in my historical knowledge. Bears more study.

diode
diode
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

the uk didn’t carve itself up

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  bob sykes
1 year ago

Power did shift somewhat to Constantinople, but you can’t disregard the immense symbolic weight of Rome itself. Functionally, the former became the seat of imperial power before 476, but historically, psychologically, and culturally, it never bulked as large as Rome. When Rome fell, the world changed.

Xman
Xman
1 year ago

I’d argue that 9/11/2001 was our Alaric moment. Everything since has been a total shitshow that revealed the GAE’s glass jaw and the fecklessness of its ruling class. What did we do in response? Increased Third World immigration and elected a mulatto Muslim more loyal to the barbarians than to us, and sent the mercenary legions out to lose a 20-year war against actual barbarians who had nothing to do with 9/11 while KBR and Halliburton made a fortune and the generals all got promoted. Caligula wanted to appoint his horse to the Senate; we have a half-Subcontinental/half-mulatto horse’s ass… Read more »

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Xman
1 year ago

Yes, when 911 happened I was a blue-pilled pathetic conservative ignaramus kid. I thought, “oh man, we’re gonna settle the shit with the muslims, take back the western-made oil fields, and finally close the border. It’s Reaganin’ time!” Even all the great patriots of the country put cheap made in china flags on their car for a month or two! Instead. . .troops are killed and maimed while they go door-to-door or build schools for muslim girls or whatever bullshit they were doing, filling up with gas becomes super expensive and stays that way, border is flung wider open than… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  fakeemail
1 year ago

And let’s not forget the Sand Hutus built a massive mosque just a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero. Any country that allows that sort of shit richly deserves a precipitous demise. And that is just what has happened.

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

And you still believe the 9/11 bullshit the Media told you.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  Xman
1 year ago

To put it more simply, the US government has already been conquered and occupied by foreign neocons who hate the actual population and mostly give their allegiance to a tiny country in the Middle East..none of whom have ever been elected to anything…They and the other foreign invaders are starting to fight it out for the spoils of a dying civilization…

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Xman
1 year ago

Brilliant post. Somebody in Philly ought to print it out and slap it on the Liberty Bell.

RealityRules
RealityRules
1 year ago

Here is an interesting perspective on France: https://counter-currents.com/2023/07/its-not-a-revolt-sire-its-a-secession/ Scott Greer had a great article called American Chavism a few months back. The premise is that eventually the Democrats coalition of the fringes will figure out that reparations solely for blacks will never work, but that giving every ethnos a grievance and a claim will happen. Then an American Hugo Chavez will arise, and unite the aggrieved ethnic groups and expropriate and dispossess Americans – the European people who created the country from a stone age nothing. I saw a blurb from Trump from an interview yesterday, where he said, “If… Read more »

Mycale
Mycale
Reply to  RealityRules
1 year ago

Well, they’ve been working on that for generations. Immigrants that come here are often the hardworking, keep-your-head-down, be-thankful-for-the-opportunities-you-have group. These people, I don’t think they belong here, I don’t think they help the nation or its citizens, but they mostly fit the model for what you’d want someone coming here to be. Then they have kids. Conservacucks say these kids would get further integrated into the American fabric. They don’t. They go to American schools, which are all run by leftists, where they get taught to be spiteful mutants and revolutionaries. They come out with a chip on their shoulder… Read more »

Death to Orange Clowns
Death to Orange Clowns
Reply to  RealityRules
1 year ago

“Trump….said, “If we don’t win in 2024 this country is finished.” These statements from conservatives fill me with white hot burning rage. Not because the country isn’t finished, but because Trump and his retarded supporters never do anything when they are in power. Trump didn’t do anything to fix immigration, voter fraud, or lawlessness and his supporters didn’t care. If you tried to point out his lack of action during his presidency, they accused you of having “Trump derangement syndrome”. Now, after completely wasting 4 years, Trump and his idiot supporters are going around with their doomsaying that we are… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Death to Orange Clowns
1 year ago

Sigh, another TDS person.

When were the lowest number of illegals caught/counted crossing the Southern border? Trump presidency. When were *any* funds provided to build or repair “the wall” on the Southern border? $1B+ from Trump after he declared a national emergency and redirected those funds.

That’s not nothing, that’s more than *any* previous Dem or Rep President did or attempted to do.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  RealityRules
1 year ago

Chavez had the advantage of being able to “boil off” well-to-do malcontents off to neighboring countries, and then kinda-well-to-do, and so forth, something GAE won’t be able to do. Not that it won’t be tried, it almost certainly will.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  RealityRules
1 year ago

“The premise is that eventually the Democrats coalition of the fringes will figure out that reparations solely for blacks will never work, but that giving every ethnos a grievance and a claim will happen. Then an American Hugo Chavez will arise, and unite the aggrieved ethnic groups and expropriate and dispossess Americans – the European people who created the country from a stone age nothing.” This is the plan. It will fail. Literally everyone hates the joggers and will not enter into a coalition with them EXCEPT for stupid whites and “whites” and even that is fading away. The other… Read more »

WCiv911
WCiv911
1 year ago

So what to do?

Accept the fact and join in on the looting?

Stoically enjoy your life as best you can until the Neovisigoth invasion makes it impossible?

Get a MAGA hat, keep voting, cursing, go to school board meetings, buy Yuengling instead of Budweiser.

Be a prepper and go into hiding?

KGB
KGB
Reply to  WCiv911
1 year ago

A combination of the first two options? I’m going to enjoy the time I have left, and part of that enjoyment will be derived from fleecing and frustrating the Spiteful Mutant class.

And when the Goths begin the sack, I hope my people are the tip of the spear.

Cruciform
Cruciform
Reply to  WCiv911
1 year ago

“So what to do?” I point to the early settlers out West. At any moment, hostiles could come over the hill, rape your wife and daughters in front of you, before scalping you and taking off with your women folk in tow. Fail to split enough wood for the winter, entire family perishes. Federals are too busy reneging on contracts with the natives to give a rat’s ass about you. Coupled with — learn SKILLS. Unlike, say, storing up foodstuffs (not that I have anything against that), be as ready as you can be to be self sufficient, avoid the… Read more »

mikew
mikew
Reply to  Cruciform
1 year ago

“Federals are too busy reneging on contracts with the natives to give a rat’s ass about you.” Two virtue signals in one sentence.

What the hell is a “native” ? Did Indians wear bones through their noses? And reneging on a contract with a defeated foe is not immoral

Wkathman
Wkathman
Reply to  WCiv911
1 year ago

This may sound lame, but I suspect the thing to do is leave it all in God’s hands. None of us are very long for this Earth anyway. Perhaps it’s best to limit one’s investment in what was never more than a temporal existence to begin with.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Wkathman
1 year ago

It isn’t in God’s expectations for you to sit idle. The examples are laid out. Your hands should labor to create as worship to your Creator. You resist because Christ resisted and rebelled against evil. You fight in your own way for future generations because He suffered for them. We were never meant to resign or contemplate our toes. Complimentary to this, you need to find peace in acceptance of what you cannot change. Fight the battles you can fight. Worry about what is in your sphere of influence over your sphere of concern. I sometimes suffer from fatigue and… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  WCiv911
1 year ago

WCiv911: It doesn’t need to be either/or. While we accept that AINO could stagger on for decades, my husband and I see the decline and believe it will noticeably impact these last decades of our lives. We have thus adjusted our lives accordingly. We have made changes that most people are too afraid or comfortable or secure to make. They want to prepare their children for today’s world two or three decades into the future, world without end, so they stay the course, send them to college or the military, and convince themselves the new city council will really clean… Read more »

Tired Citizen
Tired Citizen
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Great post 3g – My wife and I plan to either leave the “country” all together or do much of the same as you have. The number one requirement is to get away from the American negro. Our nice suburban hood has become increasingly “diverse” in just five short years. With it there is litter, theft, bullying kids, etc. they can’t help themselves as they are a subhuman species. To say I hate them does not come close to the true magnitude of my fatigue from them. My wife has made the leap too, without any prodding from me. She… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Tired Citizen
1 year ago

Well, good luck Tired. In the Southwest where I reside, Blacks are about 3% of the population. Hispanics are 20+%. Will you be better off “simply” by the lack of Blacks with a corresponding increase of other minorities? I can’t see myself in such a situation.

That leaves the few other English speaking Anglo nations, which seem to me on the same path as us—only a few decade behind.

GA
GA
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Buy Lead ofc….

Cruciform
Cruciform
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

3g4me, you speak with wisdom. Solid post.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

you can look at the pace of change the past 10-15 years and project that into the future — Ugh, well, I’ll see y’all under the overpass! Reminds me though of a local leader in the rural community that we live in relating the tale of going around to meet new residents and saying that most of them are “sitting around waiting for the world to end” (note: *not* saying 3g is like that). Those people upset me almost as much as the pot-soaked bugmen in the area. If those same people brought their determination to the limited local politics… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Evil: Funnily enough, my husband tells people we now live in Mayberry since we’ve moved rural. Most locals are only vaguely aware of how bad the national demographic decay is, because they don’t see much of it here (although we notice and abhor each and every non-White face). Others (some native and some from other states) are very aware and have made different plans for the future. It’s hard to say what will happen if/when things truly crash one way or the other. We are in our 60s with no prior rural experience. I don’t want to cuddle or gut… Read more »

TomA
TomA
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

This is one of the most cogent and concise descriptions I have ever read explaining the motive for choosing survival over delusion. Thank you 3g4me.

And I would add that there is nothing more rewarding in my life in the mountains than making stew in a large cast iron pot during the depths of winter and baking bread on the hearth. I feel a tangible connection with my ancestors and both their ways and wisdom. It is, in my humble opinion, a better way to live regardless of the fate of the GAE.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  TomA
1 year ago

TomA: Thank you for the compliment. Cogent perhaps; concise I think not. Too verbose because I don’t go back and read/edit before posting. I have the large cast iron pot but have not baked bread since my teens. I am in total agreement that this is a better way to live – we have space to think and breathe and just live as we were meant to (i.e. not as bugmen in highrises or cookie-cutter suburbs).

mikew
mikew
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Don’t be a drama queen. He didnt say your choice is foolish or offensive.

However, don’t think your retreat into rural America will make you safe. Isolated rural homes are very vulnerable. I also live fairly deep in the country and it’s a matter of perpetual vigilance since law enforcement is a long way off.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Spot on, 3g4me. Anyone thinking Trump will sort this out in 2024, or that voting in federal elections matters is crazy.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  WCiv911
1 year ago

Not every problem has a solution.

You can’t stop the tides.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 year ago

It’s not the one thing. It’s the dismal tide.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  ProZNoV
1 year ago

Where there is no solution, there is no problem.

TomA
TomA
1 year ago

The most recent example of a large scale collapse is the Soviet Union in 1991. And it was both sudden and unexpected. The 1990s under Yeltsin were a time of great hardship for the Russian people accompanied by general looting via domestic and foreign oligarchs. It wasn’t until Putin came along that the recovery started, and even then, it has taken two more decades for Russia to get back on its feet. What can we learn from that example? I would argue that the collapse was the cure. It brought on the hardship needed to cull the deadweight and reinvigorate… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  TomA
1 year ago

The collapse of the SU is fascinating. It doesn’t seem possible, even now. One day the empire collapses, but everything was still there. The human capital was there. The machinery was still there. Whatever they could do the day before collapse should have been possible the day after. The American empire is a bit different in that we’ve been selling off the productive assets and have loaded the world with the Dollars to buy everything else that hasn’t been auctioned off. The Soviets still had all the machinery to make the stuff they needed. The one thing we have going… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
1 year ago

The Soviet Union in a few aspects, was at a distinct advantage over the “proposed” collapse of the GAE: The Soviets, for all practical purposes, had no foreign creditors. There were few Western losses when the hammer and sickle were finally lowered from the pole. I realize that there were a few client states that suffered in the transition. Cuba is a good example. In stark contrast, if and when the GAE crumbles, the economic damage, both domestic and foreign, would be catastrophic. I agree that the Soviets, at least near term, did keep their factories and workers. However, unless… Read more »

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

I suppose it was more like a prisonbreak than an empire collapse, not that GAE isn’t heading the same way.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  TomA
1 year ago

That’s a good post, and I upvoted it. However, the USSR was based upon a lunatic experiment in Marxism that was always doomed to fail. Now I fully agree the USSR’s collapse was unexpected when it happened. But I always fully believed the US would win the Cold War and that I would live to see the USSR shuffled off into its grave. In the case of AINO, I’m far less confident in a speedy dissolution. AINO will fall, of that there is no doubt. But instead of something spectacular, it will, I believe, slowly fade into dysfunctional obsolesence.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

” I believe, slowly fade into dysfunctional obsolesence”

I go back and forth. The excerpted path is the more probable, but the people running the (shit)show are perfectly capable of incredibly stupid and suicidal actions that could end the GAE in a nuclear flash or a rapid economic meltdown.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  TomA
1 year ago

The difference is that the Russians were a much tougher people than we are, used to hardships and sacrifice. Also, they were a homogenous people (once they get rid of all the “stans” and other Soviet republics). They also had a leader of genius who only turns up once a century: Putin. There are still a lot of great people in the US (maybe even the majority) but I doubt that it will be able to remain a single, unified nation after any collapse.

Chet Rollins
1 year ago

It’s not just ice cream packages are getting smaller, but the quality of the ingredients are going downhill. In order to get anything whose ingredients include something as simple as “cream, sugar, vanilla”, you’re talking about top tier stuff, and about a 50% markup.

Think of how expensive things would be if all the seed oils, HFCS, etc. were removed and we had sensible ingredients again. The deterioration is even worse than simply shrinkflation.

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

” Few Americans are aware of how many things that are in our food that are banned in much of the world. ”

The whole purpose of putting questionable ingredients in American food is really where an especially evil subset of the Cloud People are thinking about the long term: The longer you eat the garbage, you will get sick earlier and make even more money for Big Pharma.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Coalclinker
1 year ago

“…no one is starving in America due to a lack of affordable food, but it is that thing they see every day that gives people a sense of things.”

Along the line of this thread, and today’s posting above, it should be noted that people may not starve, but their nutritional needs suffer as they are forced to choose lower quality—yet still affordable—foods.

Filling ones belly with processed crap is better than starvation, but has its problems as well in the long run.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

Of course, eating cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean buying processed crap. Fresh fruit and vegetables are still–relatively–inexpensive. So are chicken and turkey. People who gorge on corporate garbage do so largely from ignorance, apathy and poor taste, not because they’re too poor to eat reasonably well.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

Ostel, that’s true up to a point. I’m able to keep my food expenditure reasonable even these days, and I don’t eat seed oils, HFCS, much sugar, or stuff with a lot of ingredients. But it’s very difficult, getting near impossible, to get produce without glyphosate in it, or meat that hasn’t been fed on the same. And that’s before we get into the endocrine disruptors in the packaging.

Reply
Reply
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

Read the ingredients for an American market product.
Then find the product with the identical name that is sold in a European market, say, England.
You may be surprised, but shouldn’t be, to find that the English version has a shorter list of ingredients. That list also has more recognizable ingredients and fewer chemicals.

Caveat emptor. Maybe Alaric was onto something?

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

There was a science fiction short story by Gene Wolfe called “Seven American Nights,” published in 1978. The story is set in a post-collapse United States of the twenty second century. America collapsed in large part due to overuse of chemicals in foodstuffs. As a result, nearly every American has suffered genetic damage of one degree or another and the United States has been reduced to a Third World nation.

ex-poster-factotum
ex-poster-factotum
Reply to  Oswald Spengler
1 year ago

Gene wrote that story as a form of penance for Pringles.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Chet Rollins
1 year ago

You beat me to it. I was going to say exactly the same thing. Only the more expensive ice cream is made with sugar. One level down it’s a combination of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. And one level further down, it’s only corn syrup. I don’t even know whether people read the ingredients.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

Some of the lower priced brands don’t even taste like ice cream any more, which is somewhat surprising as I thought some of the main ingredients were regulated There’s only so much you can do to produce a cheaper product and still name it as “wholesome” ice cream.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

Your observation is likely true. However, it’s worth mentioning that, for all practical purposes, [cane] sugar and high fructose corn syrup are identical, within 5% tolerance. (So say some of my diet books.) Corn syrup came into wider use, at least in part, because it was a cheaper alternative to sugar, which like many agricultural commodities, is subject to tariffs domestically to “protect” “farmers” which is political euphemism for massive subsidy to agri-business. Been going on for nigh on a century, now. I don’t have any solution to the above issues. However, unlike many problems, diet is usually well within… Read more »

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

“Corn syrup came into wider use, at least in part, because it was a cheaper alternative to sugar, which like many agricultural commodities, is subject to tariffs domestically to “protect” “farmers” which is political euphemism for massive subsidy to agri-business.” My memory’s not too great these days but was it the early ’80s when the domestic sugar lobby got tariffs imposed on imported sugar? That’s when sugar became expensive relative to high-fructose corn syrup and when the soft drinks manufacturers (Coke, Pepsi) switched to HFCS. You can still get soda made with real sugar (or imported as “Mexican coke”) but… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

I think you have the transition correct. Personal anecdote: I’ve been an inveterate soda drinker most of my life. In the mid-1980s (my 20s) I switched from regular to diet. Not to save money, but over concern for the amount of sugar that I was consuming in several cans per day. I cannot be sure, but I recall the change was based on cutting out the sugar, not that the taste of regular had changed. I’ve tried regular sodas and the cane sugar products. To be honest, I cannot easily tell a difference. Perhaps because I’ve drunk diet for so… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

Ben: I use a ton of cane sugar these days . . . feeding the hummingbirds. Those little buggers empty a 3 cup feeder (with corresponding 3/4 cup sugar mixed in) in less than a day.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
1 year ago

Carbs are the staff of life the whole world over. Who among us can really do without bread, rice, potatoes and pasta? I know it’s possible, but I have no desire to. I love those things just about as much as steak and fried chicken.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

You’re largely correct — that grains, beans, starchy foods are staples for much of the world. Low carb often means more animal products which is rather a luxury by historical and even present world standards. But highly refined foods? A double edged sword. Pros: low cost, convenience, storage life, uniformity of product, etc. Cons: often nutritional value is slashed (vitamins, minerals lost.) People vary greatly in their biochemistry; some do well on a certain diet that would be sub-optimal or perhaps even harmful for another guy. I still eat carbs but they tend to be “higher quality” e.g. fresh or… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Chet Rollins
1 year ago

Just checked my heavy whipping cream pint – it’s still 16 oz (assuming they are not lying). I guess since it is still used for cooking, they can’t get away with it like they do with ice cream.

toastedposts
toastedposts
1 year ago

Are we speed-running the collapse of the Roman Empire, or did Rome just die in the most brutally lingering collapse in history? It seems European countries in the middle ages or the 19th/20th century rose and fell *far* faster than Rome.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  toastedposts
1 year ago

Collapse is rarely a straight line down. It’s decline, then half-recovery, then decline, then half-recovery, and so on. It’s like an old man who gets sick, then sort of recovers, then gets sick again, then kind of recovers again. But after each recovery, he’s not the same as he was before — he’s more fragile, and more prone to further illnesses. The real culprit is age. And so it was with the lingering death of the Western Roman Empire.

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

The question is how many more periods of decline and recovery does the American Empire have left to it?

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Oswald Spengler
1 year ago

Now that’s an interesting question. Let’s take a tentative stab at it. Maybe the first was in 1973, with the quadrupling of oil prices? The next in the early 1980s, when interest rates rose to about 17% and decimated much of the industry in the mid-West (the original Rust Belt)? The next in 2001, with the dot-com collapse? The next in 2008, with the subprime collapse? And the last is the one we’re living through right now. Each time the patient has become a little more anemic and fragile.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Oswald Spengler
1 year ago

At what point did it become an empire? Certainly some time after WWII, which means there have been precious few cycles.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

Spanish American War at the latest. You can make a case it’s been an empire from day one, with its east to west continental expansion.

Perhaps it didn’t clothe itself in its current iteration until WW2, but it was definitely an empire prior to that.

not_JMG
not_JMG
Reply to  Oswald Spengler
1 year ago

I guess there is a lot of ways to look at things. This is how I’m seeing it. Say we became an empire in 1945. Our first crisis was in the 1960s-1970s with the untidy war it Vietnam and ll the leftist lunacy tearing apart the fabric of the country. We recovered but were certainly weaker. Our second crisis occurred from around 2012-20?? with us losing in Afghanistan, all the identity politics and associated problems, COVID, basic Clown World craziness… Unlike some here, I think we will make it through this crisis but we will be even weaker and more… Read more »

Templar
Templar
Reply to  not_JMG
1 year ago

I guess we shouldn’t be too worried about China, then. XD

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  toastedposts
1 year ago

There’s much more ruin in a mighty empire than in two-bit feudatories. A lesson for those expecting the GAE to commence pushing up daisies any minute now, alas.

Felix Krull
Member
1 year ago

Apologize for the long copypasta, but James Delingpole’s report from the Fall is too good to pass up here. It is the 4th Century AD and the Barbarians are at the Gates of Rome. Around the Imperial capitol, the citizens of the greatest civilization the world has ever known are tearing at their togas, quite unable to agree as to what—if anything—should be done. Some, peering over the ramparts towards the hairy hordes encamped across the Tiber decide they rather like what they see. There’s something wonderfully echt and earthy about these splendidly unkempt men with their rich, musky smell… Read more »

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Felix Krull
1 year ago

Thank you, Felix. There is no need for an apology, as that was a very trenchant cut and paste. Your contributions, as with so many other participants in this forum, are greatly to be valued, whether profound or snarky.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Felix Krull
1 year ago

Felix: I had not seen that before. Brilliant and trenchant take on how I see the world today. Thank you for cutting and pasting that.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Thanks, both of you.

It’s from the highly recommendable “Watermelons: How Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future.”

https://www.amazon.com/Watermelons-Environmentalists-Destroying-Stealing-Childrens/dp/1849544050

Whitney
Member
1 year ago

“One reason is no one in their right mind takes anything the government says at face value” This is not true! I encountered one yesterday. I don’t even know why I bothered but he started talking about covid and I just snapped and said “I can’t stand the lies anymore it’s just constant lies for years” and then it just spiraled out of control for an intense like 90 seconds that ran the whole gamut of Biden the dementia patient and him claiming it was just a stutter and then at one point he became a living meme and said… Read more »

Outdoorspro
Outdoorspro
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

Yep. Trump/Covid/Ukraine really opened my eyes to the sad reality that the vast majority of our “fellow man” really just believe and do what they are told. And it’s not just the leftists, or the stupid, or the lazy.

Presbyter
Presbyter
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

I once spent a vacation week with folks in the summer. The TV was on all morning to the seemingly endless “ Today” and other such shows with its array of women, tamed blacks , and the domesticated Bush twin. It dawned on me that this was their steady diet. Any expression of disagreement brought out thst pursed lip look of disapproval and pity.
It was another world.
I never went back.

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

If you get into it with him again, go back to the, “We can disagree because we are Americans”, bit. Ask him, if one person thinks our legal system is evil and policing should be ended and the other doesn’t can you really be countrymen? If one person thinks we should have no border and taxes can be used to house, feed and educate any illegal border crosser, and the other person thinks there must be a strongly enforced border and that tax benefits are for the tax paying citizens of the nation only, can you be countrymen? A country… Read more »

Tired Citizen
Tired Citizen
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

There are tons of these idiots. I hate them more than the politicians. I have zero interest in saving them. When the time comes, they will go into the “chipper” first.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Tired Citizen
1 year ago

Tired Citizen: They’d be the first to rat you out when the next plandemic occurs or when someone puts pro-White flyers on doorknobs, so return the favor. My anger at their stubborn blindness was negatively impacting my blood pressure. If you can handle dealing with them in daily life, more power to you.

history turns on a dime
history turns on a dime
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

What if the people who will need anything from you don’t get it? I’ve formulated a new response when asked for help of any kind from these people, it’s “you’re in a pickle aren’t you”, and then turn away.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  history turns on a dime
1 year ago

I like the redneck meme from a few years back: When someone makes a request or a complaint to you, you say “Wait just a sec….nope. I’m sorry, but my give-a-damn is busted.”

Getreal
Getreal
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

One can never win an argument with a client. I know most of mine are libs, and sometimes they probe me for my ‘views.’

They never get an inch – and proving their meme-worthiness, simply just assume I agree with them and blurt out whatever they have to blurt out.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Getreal
1 year ago

Getreal: My husband is a master at what he terms “calling someone an SOB without calling him an SOB.” He is polite and professional to all customers – even those he despises – and joking/friendly with those he values. He provides excellent customer service regardless, but there are some decent, like-minded people who have made it clear their opinions and concerns align with ours. They have invited him/us to visit their homes, go on a hunt, or join them in various unusual endeavors beyond our budget – wish we could accept more of such invitations.

Whitney
Member
Reply to  Getreal
1 year ago

I know. I’m assuming this will end our relationship. A lot of my clients are on the right. I’ve saying no to leftist for a while now.
I have clients, a married couple, she’s a doctor, both on the right but they both got vaxxed they both kind of bought into be home covid thing but they have moved so far that she refers to the covid vaccine as a culling now. I will take a little credit for helping move them down the line

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Getreal
1 year ago

Agreed to Getreal.

Dealing with Karen, I realized, no, this one’s full Covid Stasi Manager-

Añd remembered my spycraft.

I am Jeeves, the English butler; always proper, properly aloof-

And ready to go full Mau Mau as a proper servant should.

If they can smile while holding a shiv behind their back, well so can I.

(Remember all the people who had to keep files on their goshdam management during the Mandate?)

Sand in the gears, baby.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

Please don’t dig at the scab.
This one is ready to put a foot on the bridge. His faith is wavering, that’s why he was talking.

It takes time. He won’t convert, but he’s at the questioning phase. It takes a lot of time.

Let it rest a bit; he’ll answer his own questions. He knows where you stand, and that you are steady.

Woodpecker
Woodpecker
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

Yes, agree. When the narrative stops making sense, people don’t stop believing, they stop thinking.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
1 year ago

Rome has been collapsing a long, long time if you lived in a Rust Belt city circa 1980. The difference is that every city more or less is part of the Rust Belt today.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

Agreed. What I see is the number of “dead zones” in the USA increasing in number and size.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

In my travels through rural AINO, far off the interstate, it smacks you right in the face

Pozymandias
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

There’s a post on Nextdoor today by a well meaning and prolific Boomercon who clearly still cares and thinks the stuff he posts will “wake people up”. To be fair, he uses good tactics. He doesn’t get ideological right away but leads with a fact-based story that can’t be disputed. Today he posted a list of buildings around Portland that has been burned recently, mostly in arson or accidental fires set by the only group that matters to the local elite – the homeless. Excuse me, the houseless, people-experiencing-houslessness, unhoused, um… outdoor…underground…humanz…, CHUDs… I considered posting something nasty on the… Read more »

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Pozymandias
1 year ago

I had a brain scan a couple of months ago ( Still awaiting word if they found one) I’ve been telling Shit-lib in-laws
“it was interesting, the tech said if you couldn’t tell the difference between a male and female brain you should be in a different line of work”.

No need to mention that I asked.

But I do mention, of course.

Mycale
Mycale
1 year ago

Obama in his first term really had a bad time dealing with the post-meltdown economic malaise, the consistently bad job numbers, the failure of his signature policies (“shovel-ready”) to jump-start the economy, etc. I also remember lefty orgs consistently reporting on this – the first Friday of every month, NPR would sullenly run a story about the bad job numbers and gloomily opine on how Obama and his whiz-kids were struggling to deal with it. The point here, though, is that they reported on it and people trusted the numbers were accurate. This was less than 15 years ago. Clearly,… Read more »

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

A good argument can be made that the divorce was finalized between economic realities and re-election chances with Obama. He went on to win a second term with numbers that previously would have prohibited such a thing.

Severian
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

This is assuming, of course, that Obama’s reelection wasn’t Fortified for Democracy ™. We all had a good laugh at Mittens Romney’s bow-tied androids saying “we hit all our numbers!”, but the truth is, they probably DID hit all their numbers. I bet the robot historians digging through the radioactive rubble will find lots of 3am ballots for the Lightworker, and/or lots of Romney votes tossed in a ditch by the Postal Service. I’d be willing to bet that a) “clean” elections are the exception, not the rule, going back to at least Andrew Jackson, and b) the last “clean”… Read more »

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Severian
1 year ago

Sure, that’s possible, even more so because Romney and his co-cucks never ever would have dared to call out cheating to put a mulatto into office. They might have been called “racist”! We don’t know that 2012 was marred by cheating with any degree of certainty as we do with 2020, though. I’ll even go a step further–with the Russia madness, Romney very well could have proved worse than The Light Bringer.

Severian
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

This is true. Looking back on it, I realize that Bill Clinton was by far the most “conservative” president in my lifetime (and I am not young). I also realize that as bad as the Democrat was in every election in my lifetime, with the lone exception of Reagan the Republican was arguably to definitely worse (and Reagan gets an unearned bump by having faced truly ridiculous opponents).

Damn, History looks a LOT different once you take the red pill.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Severian
1 year ago

The thought made here is correct, but conflated with technology and election changes. I’d argue that *no* election was “clean” in our history, just that the ability to affect the election results has grown with technology, cultural, and election process changes.

Heck, even today, no reasonable person denies “irregularities”—just that these could not have changed the final results of the election. So now the rallying cry for Rep’s to get their voters to turn out for 2024 is “beat the cheat”.

Oh, the irony… 🙁

Reply
Reply
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

The only shovel-ready project from the Obama regime was the steady supply of bullshit.

History will be cruel to Obama and to the Democrats that supported and even demanded the prevarications, dissembling and outright lying, aided and abetted by their Fourth Estate Fifth Columnists.

If there were to be an Estates General called to day, echoing the famous one prior to the French Revolution, those self-appointed to the Fourth might find themselves outcasts.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Reply
1 year ago

History should be cruel to Obama, however it’s doubtful. Obama is enshrined as our first Black President and that’s all the couple of paragraphs in the standard history books will explain.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

“Clearly, the Brandon entity remembers this, because they’re just making the job numbers up at this point.” They were making the numbers up during the Obama administration as well. The problem at that time was they could only massage the truth to a certain extent. And even before Obama, the GWB and Clinton administrations were doing the same. Thus, for example, Clinton never allowed serious analysis of his claim that he created 22m jobs. Because any such scrutiny would have revealed that the jobs were seasonal or part-time or poorly paid service-sector jobs flipping burgers. The US government has been… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 year ago

I remember an author, probably Harry Browne, making the case in one of his books (probably in 1980s) that government economic figures are sometimes revised years, even decades, after the fact. He also noted that economists and historians (economic historians, even) STILL argued over the cases of, say, the Great Depression. I surmise one could conclude that government figures are not to be taken as written in stone, as many seem(ed) to do.

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

People forget how the malignant dwarf, Robert Reich, Clinton’s Labor Secretary fudged the employment numbers by reducing the weighting of inner city respondents (read blacks) in the survey.
They changed it back again just before the Shrub Regime took office.

Tykebomb
Tykebomb
1 year ago

They were electing senators in the 7th century. Barbarians were asking the Byzantine emperor for the title of patriarch well into the same time period.

It doesnt explode, it just all falls apart.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Tykebomb
1 year ago

Yes. “President of the United States” will be around looooong after the United States, as we know it, will cease to exist. The seals and music and pomp will remain, but people won’t know why it exists or what exactly it all came from. Consider the national anthem: it’s based on a tavern drinking song. The tempo, the cadence, everything. Our national anthem is borrowed from a drinking song. Every time I hear it before a sportsball game or something, and everyone is being serious while it’s being played, it amuses me. Consider the Chinese national anthem: it sounds like… Read more »

Mow Noname
Mow Noname
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

“Ceaser” = “Kaiser” = “Czar”

“Mr. President” = “Senior Presidente” = “Presi-dizzel”

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  Mow Noname
1 year ago

“Presi-dizzel” will eventually become “Prez” or “The Big-P.”

Maniac
Maniac
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

“We will soon enter a period where everything will look like the United States, but it will be hollow and completely out of context.”

We’re pretty much already there.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Maniac
1 year ago

Maniac: Agree. Those who think it’s in the far off future feel a bit bad for their grandchildren, but meanwhile there are deals to be made and cruises to take. Those who think it’s already de facto here make very different choices.

Mike
Mike
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

The GAE has the worst anthem I’ve heard of the Western countries. God Save the Queen/King isn’t great but they have Jeruselem and The Land of Hope and Glory. Le Marseillaise is the best. It’s just a shame the real French don’t take the words to heart and kick out their invaders. I like the Russian anthem too. It’s sounds like a national anthem should.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Mike
1 year ago

There was a movement way back when to change the American anthem to “America the Beautiful” from SSB. SSB was only officially declared our Anthem by Congress in the 30’s I believe. Some folk thought it too war like others (correctly) too hard to sing (Rossana Barr comes to mind).

Of course time changes things and America isn’t all the “beautiful” these days, so perhaps the SSB is a better representation of our national ethos.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Mike
1 year ago

Mike: Glenn Beck is a nut, but I still remember fondly his variant of the Russian anthem with lyrics deifying Obama. Back then I still thought warning people that de light bringa was a Stalinist at his roots was the way to go.

wendy forward
wendy forward
Reply to  Mike
1 year ago

The Russian anthem is so magnificent. There is a video of Putin singing it (or trying to, noone bats a 1000) with the Russian Olympic athletes at Sochi that is beyond moving. I also love Shaman’s version.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  wendy forward
1 year ago

Yep. Probably the only good thing to come out of the Soviet Union. It was ripped off by the Pet Shop Boys for one of their “hits”

pecosbill
pecosbill
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

“Comrades shot by the red front and reactionaries.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ9DMRKv8-k

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  pecosbill
1 year ago

Ah, uniforms and marching songs. Germany in those days in a nutshell. Hell, even my father had an album of these and he was occupied by the Germans in WWII. Horst Wessel was an early casualty in the riots that occurred between the Bolsheviks and the NAZIs in their struggle for political control. Here’s another clip, “Warriors Song”. I urge all of you to watch it if you’ve not seen/heard it. https://youtu.be/OkDYrCCmUIA The NAZI’s had nothing on us for psychological motivation in the pursuit of military adventurism. Read the lyrics. The Germans sang of comradery and dying for ones country… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

Compsci: Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. That was awful. Blind allegiance to AINO and the GAE diverse perpetual war machine.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

Yes 3g4me, but you’ve got to agree it’s a work worthy of Leni Riefenstahl, the famous NAZI propagandist film maker.

Hell, it’s better. Think of all those young White boys out there looking for status and alpha male recognition. Join the GAE police force and see the world, or rather subdue it. 😉

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

People have long suggested Americans are the most successfully propagandized people on the planet. I only came to realize that as truth in the last ten years. There is in fact more breaking free of the Matrix, but it remains firmly in place.

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

The same thing happened with the Roman Catholic Church with Vatican II. A revolution within the form.

Bilejones
Member
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

We’re 20 years away from the return of the Bellamy Salute.

btp
Member
Reply to  Tykebomb
1 year ago

Yep. Was kinda shocked to find that Clovis(!) was very pleased when the Emperor in Constantinople appointed him Consul. St. Bede writes the Church history of the Anglo-Saxons in the 7th century and cites the year in which something happened as the x year of Emperor Y – again, talking about the guy sitting on the chair in Constantinople.

Amazing.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Tykebomb
1 year ago

“They were electing senators in the 7th century.”

Yes, the barbarians who sacked Rome weren’t out to destroy the empire. They had nothing to replace it with — this was wasn’t a case of one empire subjugating another. This was a case of rot on the inside and barbarians at the gates. The barbarians simply exploited the inner rot. The imperial institutions remained after the sacking but just gradually became a shadow of themselves, merely formal structures, until they evaporated away.

Quiet Observer
1 year ago

Readers here seem interested in the end of the Roman Empire. Here’s an historical novel about the end of Roman Britain. There are a number of parallels with what we see today.

https://www.amazon.com/QUIRINIUS-BRITANNIAS-ROMAN-Erik-Hildinger-ebook/dp/B09LM5NLQ9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Z7NCXLGJX8M4&keywords=quirinius+hildinger&qid=1689858566&s=books&sprefix=quirinius+hildinger%2Cstripbooks%2C219&sr=1-1

Mycale
Mycale
Reply to  Quiet Observer
1 year ago

There are good books about this. One I recommend is “The Final Pagan Generation” by Edward Watts which discusses life in the empire in the late 4th century AD. It does it from the lens of a generational shift in the Roman citizenry that coincided with the movement of paganism to Christianity. Yet in covering the day-to-day life, it describes how for the people living in the, the empire was functioning the way they expected it to and they built out their lives based on that. The other one is “Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization”, which is… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

I bought that book on the recommendation of someone on this site, maybe you. Thanks.

The book’s focus is on the Roman equivalent of our current time. The old beliefs are being supplanted by the new, but most people couldn’t imagine the old ways failing.

This makes me think of optimistic, civic nationalist, Reagan Republicans. Pence, Scott, Haley.

Ann hompson
1 year ago

It’s already happening but slowly, across our open borders.

David Wright
Member
Reply to  Ann hompson
1 year ago

The tentacles of foreign powers are already fully embedded in our capital.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Ann hompson
1 year ago

My first thought, too. Alaric was let into the gates and fought for the Empire. Sound familiar?

Boarwild
Boarwild
1 year ago

“ Getting whipped by a collection of bronze age goatherds in the graveyard of empires should have been a wakeup call..’

It indeed should have been but with a compliant corporate media in the tank for the regime & incessantly spinning things their way, think the hope is to keep the Karens fired up – see the hopelessly ignorant, unattractive dullards on “The View” – & normie doped up on the endless stream of fentanyl & distracted & obsessing over frivolity like professional sports that he doesn’t notice.

Jannie
Jannie
Reply to  Boarwild
1 year ago

A lot of well-connected American contractors made a ton of money offa dem goatherds. 20-year grift made folks rich.

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1 year ago

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