It appears the plan is to fill the time between now and when Donald Trump regains the White House with stories about starting a nuclear war with Russia. First, we got the NATO missiles strikes on Russia, then it was the Russian use of a mystery weapon that should terrify everyone. Instead, the response from NATO is a series of stories about doing even dumber things than the missile strikes. It is as if Western leaders are in a contest to see who can think of the dumbest idea possible.
So far this week we have stories leaking out from Europe that the Brits and French are talking about sending an “expeditionary force” to Ukraine. That was followed by comments from the head of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, suggesting NATO launch preemptive strikes on Russia. All of this is taking place in the looming shadow of a second Trump administration. The Europeans are carrying on as if Godzilla is approaching the continent.
Of course, all these ideas are being floated by people who would urinate themselves if faced with a physical confrontation. Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are ridiculous people who have landed in these positions due to the collapse of their respective political classes. The rest of the European political class is equally silly, but most lack the vanity of these two. Most are like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who seems to cherish being a middling mediocrity.
The question that is never asked is how did it come to this? Surely Britain has better men than Keir Starmer. The UK has a lot of problems, but it still has some of the best human capital on the planet. The same is true of France. This is a country that defined diplomacy in the West. There must be a deep well of talent in the country, despite generations of bad policy making. How in the world did these two feckless nitwits end up ruling these two once great nations?
Obviously, these two men did not arrive on the scene by chance. They were selected and groomed by the political system that rules their countries. They made the right friends, followed the right advice and most importantly, never asked the wrong questions about the current narrative. In many respects, these two men were selected purely on narrative grounds. They filled a role in the story better than the alternatives, so they got the job and here we are on the verge of war.
It is the machine that generates the narratives that makes it possible for so many mediocrities to bubble up to the surface of the system. For example, the crackpot idea of an expeditionary force was not dreamed up by Starmer or Macron. This has been floated by the best thinks tanks in the West. Here is a post from the Center for Strategic and International Studies talking up the expeditionary force. It was written by what the system calls an expert on the topic.
This idea is part of a larger narrative that assumes, like all managerial class narratives, that the world can be set right if the managerial elite simply has the will. That is the themes of this post in The Guardian by one of the UK’s top experts on the war in Ukraine and Russia in general. It is a completely insane post that has no bearing on objective reality, but that is not important. What is important is it tells guys like Starmer that the good guys have the will to make the narrative real.
That post is not written by the typical kook that fills the pages of The Guardian, but by a fellow calling himself James Nixey. He leads the Russia-Eurasia program at Chatham House, which is a prestigious think tank in the UK. In other words, he is a guy people like Starmer will call for advice on Russia. Note that Mr. Nixey is barely qualified to offer tour advice on Russia. His entire life has been about sitting in a room somewhere imagining what life is like outside that room.
This is a recurring theme in Western politics. From top to bottom it is people who are very good at playing along inside imagination land and even better at avoiding anything that resembles real life experience. Generations ago, the Prime Minister would have served in the military and maybe even seen war. Even the more effete politicians could rely on a class of men who understood how the world actually worked. Today such men are treated as skunks at a picnic.
In the fullness of time, the defining characteristic of managerialism will be its boiling off of the capable, independent men in favor or complaint mediocrities. Lacking genuine men of action, the compliant mediocrities search for consensus, which becomes their authority figure and their moral authority. It is why everything that comes from the think tanks and media reinforces the agreed upon positions. The most terrifying thing for a mediocre man is to stand alone against the consensus.
The narratives we keep seeing serve to make manifest the consensus and cast those within the consensus as the white hat in the drama. Much of what seems to drive these mediocre men of late-stage managerialism is moral affirmation. It is why they have all herded themselves off the Ukraine cliff. They care only for being seen at the sincerest believer in the prevailing narrative. For the political class, it means public policy is always a public act of piety.
If the crew of a ship all die at once, the ship does not immediately capsize. It will float around until it runs aground or succumbs to a big wave. On rare occasions it makes its way to land in one piece. That is the West right now. It is a ship bobbing around, crewed by mediocre men who are terrified at the thought of being in charge. Instead, they huddle together inside a consensus and ruthlessly enforce it. To continue the metaphor, they are below decks debating the need for a captain.
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“Generations ago, the Prime Minister would have served in the military and maybe even seen war.”
Mediocrities indeed. Reminds one of a great bit of writing.
From C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man:
“And all the time… In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
It still amazes me how wise men of old could see and predict our problems when the problems must have been so small in their day that it would be “the good old days” to us.
Indeed. Everything is relative. I could imagine what they’d call a “mediocre man” in those days would be seen in our time as a “great man”. Such is our current decline.
Lewis low-balled it. We now have men with prosthetic breasts.
And admirals wearing dresses to cover them up. Madness. Sheerest madness.
The madness seems compounded when one thinks of how the services would have reacted in those days to such perversions. The few “old timers” I’ve known from the military must be spinning in their graves. The stories I’ve been told are so removed from today’s “norm”. It’s like another world—and indeed it is.
I hate to be Debbie Downer here, but I don’t think a far better class of men could do much. Not at this late date. Look at the run-up to WWI. For all the blame we can legitimately assign to the Tsar and the Kaiser, the nuts and bolts of it fell on men who might’ve been mediocre in their day, but they’d be titans in ours. The problems were all structural: The Tsar needed to be pan-Slavic to shore up his authority at home after defeat in the Russo-Japanese war and the subsequent revolution. France was still smarting from… Read more »
Yeah, my fear is the train left the station thirty years ago. It is as if the managerial elite feels it needs to be punished and what better punishment than to be incinerated in a nuclear flash? My hope is the punishment is a carrier with a big hole in it from a missile strike. Such an image might be enough to terrify the economic elite into purging the system. or maybe the system merely collapses. Not great, but better than nuclear war.
They do not believe a world governed by anyone but themselves deserves to exist.
Tangentially, they don’t believe a West ruled by normal, competent white men deserves to exist. They’ve done everything in their power to marginalize such men domestically, and seem to be itching to incinerate such folk in the Slavic world as well.
The managerial elite has absolutely no clue it can die or be killed. The dumber it is the more convinced it is of its immortality, to the degree it even realizes death is certain. The economic elite has late in the day noticed the psychosis, and as you write the question is whether it will move to purge the system. I am not convinced it will. I like Sev’s analogy to WWI but the presence of nukes makes this infinitely worse, and, yes, it is possible to be worse. In a better day, a semi-competent military would engineer a coup,… Read more »
‘In a better day, a semi-competent military would engineer a coup, but the contemporary Pentagon is just as detached from reality as the rest of the managerial elite.’
The Palace Guard is vested in pensions, IRAs and associated holdings.
I think a major difference is “mediocre men” in 1913 joined the civil service and military, and today they go into other industries like tech or finance. This leaves the govt staffed with mostly retards or conformists. The hope is that the various Western govts are just theater, while the real Men of Action in the West can either roll their eyes or put a stop to it with a phone call. We can make fun of Macron and Starmer and Biden, but I can’t believe they’re doing anything but LARPing as “statesmen” while global finance and non-Western leaders put… Read more »
There is reason to believe this is true. Sorry I can’t find link, it may have been in The Guardian, it was some publication on that level, in which Boris Johnson was quoted, talking about his actions during the plandemic (this was part of the piling on after he resigned), referring to otherwise inexplicable action he’d taken he said “I had to. They made me.” Without saying who “they” were.
Sure. There’s a folder on everyone, now.
Oh, these days there are plenty of mediocre or worse women in industry as well.
I can think of three of the top of my head that are corporate directors and VPs.
Yet, people still wonder why the F-35 has something like a 15% readiness rate.
Good observation! Z-man is quite correct in his assessment of the men of the managerial class but today that class is staffed increasingly by women who are constitutionally unable to govern effectively. They are even less willing than men to buck the narrative and will go along with even crazy ideas just to fit in with the group. I note that most (not all, certainly, but most) of the Russian and Chinese leaders are still men.
Yes.
“All we have to do is re-shore manufacturing”
“All we have to do is build 100 nuclear reactors for cheap power”
“All we have to do is repatriate 30 million families back to their home countries and enforce immigration laws”
“All we have to do is tighten spending and address the national debt.”
These are all pipe dreams. With what $$, expertise, or leaders?
“These are all pipe dreams. With what $$, expertise, or leaders?” It’s really the leadership and the *will*. It can be done. Look, Musk is launching rocket ships. Two decade ago, that was the sole purview of NASA. It can be done. Microsoft bought the 3 Mile Island power plant for its electricity needs stemming from AI and Cloud storage. Designs for small “salt” reactors are on the books and one is said to be operational in China. It can be done. The problem is one of will. Of course, it does not help that the country has been (purposefully)… Read more »
It can now be plainly seen by everyone that giving Paris back was Germany’s fatal mistake
Kruschchev and JFK got out of a similarly sticky situation, perhaps not because they were wiser than the 1914 crew but because nukes motivated them to go that extra mile, or miles??
the Brits and French are talking about sending an “expeditionary force” to Ukraine. Let them gather a force of vibrants from the streets of London and Paris, put them on dirt bikes and reenact the Charge of the Light Brigade. I predict victory
it is fun to imagine the Brits and the French dispatching their best cross dressers to the front, but in reality it would be their best units, which are all white men of high character. They would be obliterated in a month.
The sending troops talk shows a concerning level of fantasy in these people.
Yes, believing that long-range missiles will cause the Russians to collapse or Putin to get overthrow is stupid, but, at least, there are actual missiles being launched. The troops quite literally can’t be sent. They have almost no ability to even get them to the front, much less supply them, much less replace their loses.
It’s one thing to fantasize about the outcomes of an action that actually happened; it’s another to fantasize about the outcomes of action that itself is a fantasy.
If they were sent to Kursk, unlikely they would last two weeks, as the Russians have been ordered to take out the trash before Jan.20…but of course, there’s not the slightest chance of that happening…
A drone or precision missile doesn’t care how many times you ran up or down some mountain in Wales or Corsica, or in Western North Carolina for that matter
A month? They are talking about sending 5,000 men to stabilize a collapsing 1,000 kilometer front. Most would be gone in a week. That’s a rounding error in the war right now.
They have this idea that those 5,000 would be a “trip wire” that would give the Russians pause.
‘but in reality it would be their best units, which are all white men of high character’
Yes, this is the empire’s problem. It spent the past half-century crowbarring-in its Female and Of Color revolution. But it’s the (officially despised) white males who keep the lights on and the sewage plant running.
This serves to ratchet-up their resentments and envy at being unable to be what they are not.
Mao did the same thing in Korea, with the remnants of the loyalist army.
Pertinent and scary thought. Fortunately young white men seem to avoid the bait
Okay, the figurehead leaders chosen by the managerial class are as fantastical as the managerial class itself, but someone or some groups prop up the managerial class. Ironically, the managerial class couldn’t manage a lemonade stand, but here they are.
Someone pays for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Someone back Starmer and Macron. This is the problem with democracy. We have no idea who is really in charge but someone is and it’s not Starmer or Macron or, even as powerful as they are, the Kagen cult.
The fear and likely reality is that the oligarchs who select the managers also are of infinitely lower caliber than in the past. I’m certain some of the elite realize how deranged and dangerous this all is, but how many and who? We probably would not like the answer.
I noticed that when you had the protests after Oct. 7. The big Jewish donors to the schools seemed genuinely shocked. Yeah, yeah, they were pissed that Jews were being thrown into Team Whitey, but they also seemed to have no clue what was going on at the universities. Now that I think of it, when you look at our oligarchs today, they are very different from the oligarchs in the past. The oligarchs of the past made their money in real industries that required dealing with the real world – getting raw materials, transporting the materials and shipping the… Read more »
No doubt. The WEF is quite the clown show, but it does reveal this diminished capacity from time to time, especially with panels on transhumanism and immortality achieved through downloading memory/brain activity. To the degree that’s not deranged, it also is infantile and stupid. Although less extreme, Bill Ackman never believed the Ghost of DEI Present would appear at his kids’ yeshiva. More than detachment and arrogance, that reflects a shocking degree of ignorance at the most basic level. As sort of an aside, the oligarchs’ monopolies on finance, tech, and information are slowly receding, and they are in panic.… Read more »
No, of course they’re not in charge.
Somebody is going to have to explain to me why the set-up of the post-Yeltsin era was so bad for everyone. The Russians exported cheap gas and pretty girls, the Euro elite and Ukrainian politicians took their cut, the Russians reinvested the proceeds in London real estate and football clubs, and German industry hummed along. 20 years later, everything is screwed and we’re talking about something as farcical as the “JEF” while we’re on the brink of WW3. I want to speak with the Manager………….
I once thought that this was oversimplified but it has proved most certainly not to be: check the Early Life of the principal agitators for war with Russia. It is almost uniform.
One word, Cpt Willard: Greed. That great big mostly empty spot on the map with untold natural resources has always been the big prize for centuries. Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, the Neocons all have had/have their designs on the vastness of Russia. Just imagine the lebensraum for all the tens of millions of third world workers that would be brought in to build and staff this vast playground for the super rich and their managerial toadies. The rainbow flag will be hoisted over the Kremlin with great fanfare. When Russia is finally filled and raped and pillaged, “they” will move… Read more »
The globalists wanted to financially and literally strip-mine Russia. Many, like our Sec State, are also old Trotskyists with ancient grudges. They’ve been throwing a temper tantrum ever since Putin put an end to those games.
Bingo. We lost a great potential ally with the shenanigans we pulled. The only thing that kept us even somewhat restrained was the potential for nuclear proliferation from a collapsed, anarchic Russian Republic.
I dunno, scanning the MSM it’s mostly Trump-Trump-Trump. I have not seen much hand-wringing over Russia. It’s very likely the only people who genuinely care about Ukraine-Russia are managerial retards and neocons. I wonder if Europe and not Washington is driving all this? You know the old line about politics is downstream from culture. Europe for some time time has been downstream from America. When we let something go, Europe is still holding onto it. Like jean jackets. It may take some time before they realize America doesn’t care, so they won’t care. This pertains to all the fads of… Read more »
That’s confirmed by the polling…A vast majority of Americans want to cut off the Ukraine entirely and tend to our business at home…..
The Grand Canyon has nothing on the chasm between what the public wants and what its putative elected leaders deliver. Mass migration is overwhelmingly opposed in every Western nation, for example. Opinion and voting only matter if the causes and issues align with what the Administrative State wants. Otherwise, the concerns are duly noted and filed away.
A green shoot, perhaps, is how quickly the public turned against the Ukraine insanity, but that is offset by it not making a difference.
I thought it was interesting that the immivader vote didn’t really show up and make a big impact in the recent election.
If the immivaders are so lazy they won’t even show up to vote, I wonder how the managerial class thinks they can shape them into any sort of fighting force.
I suspect the immivaders have most of their EBT items delivered. The new crop is lazy as hell, which highlights how much the NGO’s were involved in providing the food, shelter and transportation to get them here. There likely will be a new ballot harvesting operation targeted directly at them if the recent indifference continues.
“they are below decks debating the need for a captain.”
I may have heard it here first IDK but I always think they’re below decks having meetings that make sure nobody can be held accountable
The Russians are dismantling what was the largest and most experienced army in Europe.
Sending an Euro expeditionary force to Ukraine at this time would be like Longshanks sending Prince Edward to negotiate with William Wallace.
i am thinking more like the Athenian expedition to Syracuse
His entire life has been about sitting in a room somewhere imagining what life is like outside that room. Original? Regardless, awesome. Politicians and the unironically dubbed “thought leaders” always have been the dutiful puppets of oligarchs. With the collapse of oligarchical intelligence we have gotten the likes of Macron, Starmer, and the even dumber diversity version like Harris and Lammy. Common people may not get the governments they deserve but the oligarchs certainly do. And as an aside, while I hope beyond reason nothing of the sort happens, it almost–almost–would be a joy to see the look on Starmer’s… Read more »
isn’t the manifest unfitness of the ruling class going to bring their rule to an end? and probably within the next 10 years? especially since the chinese and russians don’t seem likewise afflicted…
Certainly. It cannot continue to exist based upon its self contradictory nature. It’s not if, it’s when—and when, then what comes after. We fear the great unknown and rightfully so. There really are no prior examples that can be extended into a modern societal situation as we have today.
“Rather reign in hell than serve in heaven” comes to mind. There is no historical antecedent because these clowns have the actual ability to take out everything with them.
That’s the one I was thinking of too.
The most damning indictment of liberal democracy is the quality of its leadership. The ruling class put up a vegetable and a retard sequentially, and asked us to believe that these were their best they had to offer. Even Trump, for all his extraordinary talents, is a poor judge of character and too easily manipulated by flattery. His chief virtue is that he is not, or was not, part of the ruling class. The liberal order is governed by narratives that are necessary to achieve the necessary consensus among distributed power nodes. Adherence to the narratives is the lingua franca… Read more »
This is the most dangerous time for the US when Trump takes office. We all know he does not read, and is not interested in history beyond talking about how long the mattress is in the Lincoln Bedroom. He is a 1960s-1990s era American male and will bring that mindset to foreign policy. I see no one on Trump’s national security staff who will be able to keep the “Commies coming over the Rio Grande” whisperers away from Trump, which will trigger and mirror his own experience of being a white dude who lived in a time everyone thought the… Read more »
This is a good observation—unfortunately *not* without merit. My hope is Trump is a reformed/contrite man after the Covid-19 fiasco. He listened to those with “credentials” against his better judgement and it lost him re-election.
Trump’s main problem (IMHO) was that he listened to too many people in his first administration and went against his gut instincts. Given our current trend in this group to analyze and condemn the managerial class, the uniparty and their overlords—perhaps placing all our money on a Trump bet is the best way out of this mess, if possible.
Nixey is no Nixon. This is especially idiotic: “Consider the drip-feed: before the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas in 2014, the west refused to provide Ukraine with any military assistance or to sanction Russia meaningfully….” That’s because Ukraine and Russia were at peace before the 2014 Nuland coup.
It makes sense to the western managerial mind that they should have sanctioned Russia for the thought crime of thinking about annexing Crimea, long before they actually did it. Putting aside for the moment the comedy of this mediocrity still believing, at this late date, in the effectiveness of sanctioning Russia. No, that is too kind to him, and too harsh to true mediocrities.
One lesson is that, if you ever start a country that is noting but a Roman Republic LARP, at least make sure you have some provision for a dictator, like they did.
Madison and Hamilton should have their bones dug up and thrown in the Potomac.
The problem with Rome’s concept of a “dictator”—one that they knew and feared at the time—was who that dictator would be. In the first use (that I’m aware of) they found Lucious Quinctius Cincinnatus. He of course was a man of honor and principle and when he no longer needed the power of absolute dictator, returned to his life as a gentleman farmer. In times not long past, our early Republic recognized such men of integrity and celebrated such as an example to the people.
Today, not so much…sigh.
‘That is the West right now. It is a ship bobbing around, crewed by mediocre men who are terrified at the thought of being in charge. Instead, they huddle together inside a consensus and ruthlessly enforce it.’ Right. The West has a crisis of masculinity in that it’s overtly feminist and anti-masculine. It devalues and disenfranchises its boys and men, calling that goodness and equality. Its impetus consists of empowered women plus tractable and inferior men, that infest the political class and the bureaucracy. All things then founder and deteriorate. Instead of meritorious and proven hierarchic leadership, upon which men… Read more »
Look at Nigel Farage in the UK, who is literally running away from a leadership role at a time when a strong man might cause the UK government to fall. Instead, he’s making videos about the Jaguar commercial and muttering like Jordan Peterson about woke going broke again, like a broken record. There doesn’t seem to be anyone willing to step up, for reasons I doubt we’ll live long enough to find out. Meanwhile Trump has surrounded himself with Russophobes like Mike Waltz and Seb Gorka — anyone who thinks the Trump White House will tamp down the insanity is… Read more »
If you really want to be scared, or reassured, I’m not really sure which, consider the high probability that none of these western “leaders” are actually in control of launching nuclear weapons, and consider who might be. We already know Trump wasn’t. We can be very confident Biden isn’t. I’m willing to wager substantial sums that Starmer and Macron aren’t either. If anybody has a guess for who is, I’m all ears.
How does this not end in the actual end of history?
that is not how things work.
Speaking of mediocrities (hey Joe), can you just imagine Harris being elected? She’d have sat at the pinnacle of the mediocrity bubble – good lord. Sure guys and gals, keep up all the tough talk about taking on Russia while promoting swarthy invaders, fags and trannies – everyone is no doubt shaking in their boots.
“In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo”
One of the thoughts repeatedly echoing in my mind when thinking about the Western press and elites is from Eliot’s Prufrock. To me, this captures the pretentiousness, effeminacy, and general superficiality, and is the general feeling of the comments here.
Couple this with impotence and a general sense of etherized unwellness – and you have the modern situation with Russia.
So far this week we have stories leaking out from Europe that the Brits and French are talking about sending an “expeditionary force” to Ukraine. Because the last time the Brits sent an Expeditionary Force to the Continent it worked out so well. 🤦♂️ They had to come back four years later with the American Army. All I can think of with the Brits is the old school yard taunt “Oh yeah? You and what army!” Quite literally. What forces can the Brits marshal? A quick Goog says the Royal Army totals 110K. How long would they last in head… Read more »
as painful as it would be, what would be the primary targets of a Russian strike? the cities. no loss there as they are purely parasitical at this point. the forest flourishes after a fire. bigger picture; the population pressure on the world is basically eliminated. in Darwinian terms, a nuke war is a huge plus for the planet, and mankind. the quality of life shot up for the survivors of the Black Plaque for the very same reasons.
Africa and the Global South would be mostly, or perhaps even entirely spared, while White nations would be devastated, the white population dramatically diminished. Over time probably this would lead to starvation in Africa, since they are incapable of surviving at current population levels without food imports.
Winner: Pajeets