Hannah Arendt coined the term “banality of evil” while covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. She noted that Eichmann was not the cartoonish villain one expected, given the accusations against him. Instead, he appeared to be a normal man who performed the tasks assigned to him, without having any ideological or emotional attachment to them. This led Arendt to argue that evil could be the result of the work of ordinary people who were not inherently malicious.
Her formulation turned out to be useful to generations of evil people who used this framework to accuse ordinary Americans of being evil, for the crime of living their lives as white people. That was probably why the line became so popular, but that does not strip it of its truth value. Human systems are capable of turning the ordinary acts of the people in the system toward evil ends, even though the people themselves may not be evil in the ordinary way we think of it.
This is the subtext to the broad indictment of managerialism. The fascists, understood through the lens of managerialism, created a ruthless machine, animated by ideology, that dehumanized their society. The Soviets were close behind in creating a communist machine that forced everyone into the moral framework of the ideology. Those who could not fit into the ideology were destroyed. This is what made fascism and communism evil. They mechanized and normalized brutality.
Of course, that view of fascism and communism was from the perspective of people on the cusp of post-liberalism. The paleocons, sensing that America was succumbing to the same managerial forces as Europe, were warning about what lies ahead for managerialism as an organizing political order. They were wrong in their analysis, as America ceased to be a liberal society in the 19th century. Progressivism, the unique American ideology, was filling the void in the 20th century.
This turned out to be the great innovation of progressivism. It appropriated the language and forms of liberalism in order to present itself as the antithesis of ideology. It was the broad conclusion of reason. Progressivism, repackaged as liberalism in the Cold War, was not about how the world ought to be, but about how the world would be if only people allowed it to be so. Man, liberated from superstition and ignorance, would naturally settle into liberal democracy.
The result, however, was what the paleos predicted. The managerial revolution that began in the first quarter of the 20th century got going for the same reason it got going in communist and fascist societies. Ideology is not enough. It needs a practical application that takes the moral claims and turns them into an ethical system administered by a priestly class. The role of the priest in a Christian society is filled by the manager in an ideological society.
It is why America is awash of moralizing. Every politician eventually turns himself in an Old Testament prophet, warning that we must comply with the tides of history or face certain destruction. Every product is sold as a sacrament. Buy this widget in order to tell the world you are a righteous man. Middle managers in corporations are sent off to leadership class, so they can properly evangelize to their cubicle jockeys. The most trivial things are attached to great moral crusades.
This brings us back to Arendt’s observations about Eichmann. The crimes against civilized life we have observed over the last years were done by people, who like Eichmann, did not present themselves as evil. They could not imagine themselves as evil because they were on the right side of history. The proof of that is everyone they know is on the same side and everyone they know is a good person striving to make the world a better place.
It is this system of thought that made Joe Biden president. He was the smiling face of a machine that rewarded affable, useful dullards, as long as they served the needs of the system, which was the endless hunt for enemies of the system. The peak of the woke terror produced President Joe Biden, the guy who was supposed to normalize the terror by making ordinary people accept it as normal. How can “Working Class Joe” be a bad guy when he is always telling jokes and smiling?
It is why it is right to think about Joe Biden as the Eichmann of woke. Just as Eichmann and many men like him were the banal face of the underlying evil of the system, Joe Biden was the avuncular, jovial face of the American managerial system. He is not unique, but typical, the good example of the type that has come to dominate the political class, which is the fig leaf for the managerial class. The smiling, backslapping pol is what stands between the citizen and the machine.
Stripped of the charming rogues and pitchmen, the evil of the machinery is made plain and therefore easy to resist. That is the part of Arendt’s observations about Eichmann that applies to us now. Even if neither man can be accused of evil on the individual basis, their talents were put to use by an evil system. Even if one can show that their intent was not evil, it does not matter. They helped normalize evil and that is arguably worse than the evil itself.
It is tempting to think this is an inappropriate comparison, given the death sentence that has been handed to Biden. In 1961, however, when Eichmann was given his death sentence, the system which he served was long gone and the damage it wrought was gone with it. Joe Biden is still causing damage. His cancer diagnosis is now removing the last bits of trust in the system. The life of Joe Biden and now his looming death, has been in service to the destruction of social trust.
It was hard to hate men like Eichmann, even after their actions had been universally condemned, because they were not obviously evil men. That was always the point of Joe Biden and why the managerial class loved him. He was a simpleton and braggard, but he would ruthlessly execute his instructions and do so in a way that was hard for the people to hate. He normalized evil by making it feel like the way things were done and had to be done. Joe Biden is the banality of evil.
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I think you are underestimating what a scumbag Joe Biden is. His own daughter wrote in her diary that her father forced her to take “inappropriate showers” with him. That, along with the way he acted around little girls (sniffing their hair and the creepy touching), makes me think the guy is a pedo.
Hunter had Joe’s name in his phone as “Pedo Peter.” There is little doubt about it.
So getting back to evil, what does that say about the people who work for or defend the guy? Everybody knows at this point. These types only ever rise to power when society itself has become so debased. How many major corporations break the rules every day, some good person whistle blows, and then has their life ruined? The system itself has transformed into this, not saying it was ever perfect, but at this point its pure evil.
Longtime establishment stooge Megan McArdle posted on X about the obvious hiring discrimination against whites that has taken place and why it happened. Halfway through the thread she says she talked to a law partner about why this happened and the explanation was that they figured it was impossible to get sued. She goes on to add suing in many fields like academia or non profits would have been career suicide. They have become so insular no one will dare to use the law to oppose them.
https://x.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1924515586278572406
I always felt like America First Legal was one of the most effective organizations we have, and of course it was started by based Stephen Miller. It only takes a few lawsuits to put the fear of God into EVERYONE, and that’s exactly what they have been doing. The clear written law of the United States says that the behavior of about 98% of corporations and 100% of nonprofits/universities is illegal and so there is fertile ground for lawsuits.
Beware the man who feels he has nothing left to lose, he doesn’t care if he dies, he doesn’t care if you die.
Right, so 80% of the people in the United States will do evil if it protects their income stream. Think we learned that in 2020 and 2021. At least in the past the lust for money was balanced by religion. Then we killed religion and replaced it with pop culture. The internet just injected steroids into that bullshit and look where we are now.
For some people it was lust for money. For others it was preservation of their livelihood. There’s a big difference between the two.
And for the majority, it was just risk abatement. Anyone who has not yet grasped the ability of the Blob to destroy you, me, anyone, is a fool.
This reminds me of a cyber security person saying that if you work remote the companies feel perfectly fine with spying on people at will and during non-work hours through their work computers and work phones. There must have been a lot of abuse of that during peak woke and there probably still is.
To avoid getting sued is likely why Harvard found a “teaching” position paying close to a million dollars with which to employ their recently fired president, Claudine Gay.
Yes. America is Evil.
Some might even call it the great Satan 🙂
Do you mean……………….SATAN?
I remember a story that went around about how he would swim in his pool naked in front of female secret service. I’m inclined to believe it because it fits with the rest of his persona. It didn’t get any traction. But then Tara Reade didn’t really either. If you asked your average baizuo about her, they’d say “Who? The actress?” Or accuse her of being a Russian plant, since that was the only place she could go to escape the retribution. (I am also inclined to believe Ms. Reade, because of her mom on CSPAN back in the day).
I believe Reade too. (See there, turkeys CAN fly.)
This privilege of suing for made up accusations goes right to the heart of what Ray has been saying. I just saw a clip by a woman, sued by another woman scorned (by her, she’s hetero), for millions of dollars. She was explaining that’s why men give up- it’s easier to just give our over-entitled, over-empowered women what they demand rather than ruin your life. They make stuff up, accuse you of it, and will go to the ends of the earth pursuing the accused in court and online rather than than ever admit to fault or to bearing false… Read more »
I personally wouldn’t swim in front of female subordinates as an alpha move. Ever heard of shrinkage?
Let’s not forget that Biden hooked up with Jill when she was married to some other dude who was contributing to his campaign. She became a campaign volunteer, and Biden started fucking her while her then-husband was donating money. About as sleazy as it gets…
This early incident explains 2020 Jill Biden. She was “monkey branching” at an early age. The pinnacle of success for her was the Presidency. That her husband was incapable of executing the office of no concern to her. That he could achieve it was everything. Again, is this an example of “banality”? Hard to believe so.
Jilly is far more malevolent than Tater Joe. Calculating, cunning.
And correct, she managed to monkeybranch her way to the White House, where (trust me on this) she was the real person in-charge.
“(trust me on this) she was the real person in-charge.” Oh, I trust you on that. I confess to such with my wife whom I depend upon for many decisions and sage advice. It’s most often laziness in my part, however one becomes used to such delegation/dependency. You don’t stay married for 50 years without developing such, and I can see if I were declining in cognitive ability it would happen pretty automatically. Indeed, I even had my doctor(s) of late telling me to feel free to bring her along on examinations/consultation. It is just another of the “indignities” of old… Read more »
“I confess to such with my wife whom I depend upon for many decisions and sage advice.”
That’s how it was designed to be. “Help-meet” does not mean “subordinate”. It never did. It means something more like “suitable” or “match”. The higher the quality of the man, the higher the necessary quality of the woman to be his match.
Thats nice. Athough in my case I married above my station.
‘That’s how it was designed to be. “Help-meet” does not mean “subordinate”. It never did’ Bible: ‘But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man. . . .’ (1 Corinthians 11:3) The head of the woman is THE MAN. Period. Not ‘partner’. Not ‘equal’. And damn sure not ‘superior’, which is what nearly every wife was to husband when I lived in America and observed around me. The passage DOES mean SUBORDINATE, unless you’re gonna argue ‘the head of’ means blah blah opposite. Your (sad, really)… Read more »
Corithians? Yes. If you take the word of a Pharisee who claimed to have “seen the light”, yet has 3 very different versions of his “road to Damascus” moment?
I do not automatically reject anything said by a jew, unlike many commenters here. I just compare what Paul says to what Jesus says, and often find him lacking.
Incidentally, your take, the one Paul expresses, is also that of the Pharisees, who He says are Satan’s offspring by word and deed. Doesn’t that give you pause?
Wow sorry had to laugh,
At least you made it that far. Most don’t, you must be extra ornery😉
‘“(trust me on this) she was the real person in-charge.”
Oh, I trust you on that. I confess to such with my wife’
You ‘confess’ that your wife is in-charge. Well, it’s a popular choice!
But ‘accept such or die’? You cannot be serious. I suffer under those ‘indignities’ too, I suspect far more serious than yourself. I push through it without a wife, much less one that is in charge of me.
Now if you are incapacitated mentally, then sure, your wife would be making the decisions. Are you incapacitated mentally? :O)
One wonders if Vogue editor Anna Wintour is going to feature Jill on any upcoming covers of the rag, er mag.
Sounds like something Trump would do…
And wasn’t this elaborate sexual hi-jinx taking place when Joe’s sainted wife, Cornelia, hadn’t yet driven her car into a truck? Joe, in feigned outrage, then for years blamed the truck driver as having”drunk his lunch,” which was NOT true. Sort of the same deflection of blame that this week’s prostate cancer diagnosis does for last week’s replaying the audio of Special Counsel Hur’s interview of President Biden, showing undeniable cognitive lapses. One wonders . . .what comes next?
It indeed is a mistake to underplay how malignant Biden was. He falsely accused the man his late wife plowed into, killing her and his kid, of being drunk, to cite a quick example. Biden perfectly reflected the Banana Empire’s vile nature.
A lie he told frequently where the only benefit was a small amount of public sympathy in elections he was going to win easily. Not only was the truck driver not drunk, Biden’s wife was at fault in the accident. The truck driver’s daughter had to publicly shame the Biden campaign to stop using the story in order to get him to drop it. I bet he needed frequent reminders in the 2020 campaign not to bring it up.
Just thought of another benefit to Joe that fatal car accident provided: it made him a widower, which allowed him to remarry without the problem a divorce would have caused his Roman Catholic identity. I don’t think Dr. Jill is Catholic, cuz she obviously got a divorce and I think the ex is still alive. Not sure she can take communion without the church noticing the breach of its rules.
Yep, I think there is enough evidence/innuendo to assume Biden was pretty evil in and of himself. The entire family knowingly committed evil/criminal acts of one type or another, pick your favorite. There are many. I can buy into Z-man’s analysis, but only to a point. Eichmann perhaps was a better example in that I have never read of his “private” evil actions in private life.
You may well be correct. However, that is not how your average Griller knows Biden. To him, Biden is just how Z described him–affable Joe Six Pack, the sort of prez you’d like to have a burger and a beer with down to the corner grill.
Say what you want about banana republics, but Latin Americans at least stage honest coups: men with guns, explosions, gaudy uniforms, a few corpses in the street, the new caudillo on the balcony etc. It has an integrity about it that I can respect; you know what you are looking at. It would never occur to them to fix an election AND get insanely self-righteous about gainsayers AND install a dementia-addled Mr Magoo as el presidente AND acclaim him as Pericles reborn while he slurs and phases in and out of consciousness. It’s a retarded burlesque, performed by malicious halfwits,… Read more »
The great Garcia Marquez wrote a story (“Nobody Writes to the Colonel”) about a pedo LatAm dictator who would molest school girls. The parents complain to his Prime Minister, so he hires prostitutes to dress in school girl uniforms so the Colonel could molest them instead. Oddly enough, Jill Biden didn’t think of this obvious solution. Even Marquez couldn’t imagine someone of Biden’s depravity.
What does a Joe Biden say about the system that elevates him to the top?
We already know. From 2022: “America is a Nation that can be defined in a single word…Iwuzindfutmhmafut”
It would never occur to them to fix an election AND get insanely self-righteous about gainsayers AND install a dementia-addled Mr Magoo as el presidente AND acclaim him as Pericles reborn while he slurs and phases in and out of consciousness. It’s a retarded burlesque, performed by malicious halfwits, apparently with the aim of inducing severe mental illness in the spectators.
That’s some nice writin’ there my man. I’ve often contemplated the same, how the GAE took corruption to the highest level all while cloaking itself in faux morality. Hypocrisy is the coin of the GAE realm.
Latin America is still a masculine culture so when it comes time to stage a coup, the course of action is obvious, focused, and pragmatic. The US is now a faggy gyno-empire. When women go bad(-er), they always put on a big show of self-righteous moralizing. The ultimate example is Hillary who invariably painted herself as a saint while plotting multiple murders in the background.
Correctamundo.
Which is why I live here. I can still be masculine and not only stay outta jail but be respected and even loved.
All Ms. Amerika wants to do with me is either kill me or put me in a cage. And tell me I’m The Problem throughout the process.
Unless the criminals behind it are held accountable (fat chance) criminals in the courts clearing the roed for criminals outside of the courts.
The snowball won’t stop rolling downhill.
Well, Latin-American countries are masculine, and AINO is feminine. That’s as good an explanation of the dichotomy as you’re gonna get.
This cuts Biden too much slack. That speech with the red backdrop and the marines standing there, he sure looked like an eager participant. “Our patience is wearing thin.” I don’t know if that was scripted or not, but he definitely put some extra emphasis on it. Not just some guy reading a line. He meant it. Perhaps these things were part of what spooked some of the overlords who decided to back Trump.
Yeah, I think Musk saw that and went all-in.
Ah yes, the long dark winter where all the unjabbed were going to die. It was a blatant threat to take the magic juice. But Covid (a man made virus) and the subsequent jab were not murder……………….
I suspect there is an ongoing effort to memoryhole that appalling, red-glowing image.
It was as stark an announcement of satanism as has ever occurred before the American public. Went over most of their heads, but you can be sure the message was heard by the ‘princes and powers of the Earth’.
That speech was a This Is Where We Stand moment. America officially is on the side of hell. Wouldn’t be surprised if it spooked some folks.
It was concocted by his handlers to deliberately give him a dictatorial quality. They were also fond of the ‘Dark Brandon’ meme going around social media at the time.
This kind of thing happens when there are no dissenting voices in the echo chamber. On top of already seeing the opposition as an evil to be eradicated. It made perfect, moral, justifiable sense to the baizuo.
Yeah. It had a Hollywood feel to it, so I expect some L.A. director cooked up the staging.
But it was overtly demonic, and they knew it, like when NYC put a huge image of Kali on the Empire State Building. It’s flexing.
Joe Biden was far more evil in his personal life than Eichmann ever was. The affabale bumbling idiot that was his public face was only a mask. Joe was, and will be until the devil comes to take him, a Robber Baron at heart, whoring himself out for money and power. He bet on the ideologues in his party and double crossed the other Robber Baron in Hilary Clinton, and the ideologues used him just as much as he used them.
Biden’s biggest sin was his limited intellect. Everything was filtered through a prism of averageness before it reached his brain. The consequence of this was a man who wanted to take the terrible risk of deposing Putin. He saw things in black and white, not the shades of gray the world is usually perceived to be. Biden’s death will be a victory of normalizing fate over entropy.
— Greg (my blog: http://www.dark.sport.blog)
Word salad, meaning nothing.
To the extent it says anything, it’s completely wrong. It’s the failure to see the world in black and white, insisting that smart people see the nuances in shades of gray, that gave us the “tolerant” culture of moral relativism of today.
That’s the real failing of us modern olds — way too many of us were taken in by the snake oil, way too many incapable of saying, “No! That is wrong!” As a consequence, in lieu of wisdom, we offered pap.
You’ve GOT to stop reading him, life is short.
Yes, but don’t stop down-voting him
fate over what? the hell are you yammering about?
Greg-AI is “yammering” as his programming tells “him” to. He’s a great experiment if you consider him as an AI program, rather than a human commentator who reads this blog and comments as to his opinion.
Note: Greg-AI really has no opinion as that has not been perfected/programmed yet. He simply gathers words and attempts to respond by repeating those words in a different order with minor modifications and additions. Hence today’s word salad. If Greg-AI ever does make sense “he” will have achieved “AGI” or Artificial General Intelligence—the current “Holy Grail” of the AI community.
I’m gonna defer to the opinion of a commenter named Compsci on this one.
I considered buying one of those Siri spy machines so I could tell it to fuck off all day.
Many years ago, long before he was president, I read an MSM article (it must have been, because back then that was the only kind of news I got), which I can’t cite specifically, but I remember it because it made an impression. It quoted Joe, who was justifying the unethical/illegal action of some prior president (maybe it was Clinton? LBJ? Can’t recall). Anyhow, this unethical/illegal thing served to increase the president’s power. And Joe said that was justified because “he got away with it.” One of those things that stays with you. Apologies for the lack of specifics, I’d… Read more »
Real soon now, Joe will not be getting away.
If tracking it down is important to you, Harry Reid cited Biden as his moral compass when he was pushed about lying about Mitt’s taxes when Mitt was the candidate. I don’t remember the specifics of the Biden referent, either, but that’s got to be less emetic than going through 50 years of Biden.
I didn’t do the best job of retelling it, but the gist of what Biden was saying was his moral compass was “if I can get away with it”
You did fine. I don’t recall the specifics, either, but I remember the same thing about Biden.
A short word I don’t see used too much these days as a noun: cheat.
It is in fact a mistake to conflate sociopathy with intelligence. While many sociopaths are brilliant, most are like Biden, garbage tier opportunists with enough cunning to skate through life and sometimes accumulate mass fortunes in the process. Good point about the exploitation of ideologues, by the way, which goes to the opportunism aspect. The symbiotic relationship between the fanatics and the bloodless predators served Biden well.
A system that elevated Biden to the pinnacle of power in and of itself is sociopathic.
Yea, I think calling him a “garbage tier opportunist with enough cunning to skate through life” is perfect. Biden’s reputation for decades was as a corrupt, affable stooge. A total lightweight who was always looking for the bag. They called him Biden (D-MBNA) for a reason. His presidential run in the 1980s was an embarrassment, like Chris Christie tier (Donald DUCK!). As VP he was basically told to sit in the corner and shut up. The transformation of him into a combination of Pericles, Abe Lincoln, and FDR is very, very, very new.
“A system that elevated Biden to the pinnacle of power in and of itself is sociopathic.” Here’s an example of your decline into sociopathy. Biden came into office in the Senate in 1972. If I recall as one of the youngest ever elected to such office. It was a bad time for the nation with Nixon, Vietnam, and government in general. This lead to Carter. Carter (the worst President ever before Biden) lead to Reagan. (Ford was inconsequential.) Reagan was an “actor”, a divorced man, and oldest in the modern era to run for the Presidency. These were serious issues… Read more »
Yes. Relatedly, there also are two contradictory things at play here. The first, as you point out, is that the “news” now is blatant propaganda, with heavy use of omission. This was always true to a lesser extent–Uncle Walter was a shameless, pathological liar and shill, for example–but not to today’s degree. OTOH, social media allows everything to be dissected and examined in real time and diminishes the value of propaganda. This is why there was such a fevered attempt at censorship. The less blatant propaganda that did not have the ability to be checked was highly effective. Today’s is… Read more »
“OTOH, social media allows everything to be dissected and examined in real time”
Yep, that and it allows “everyone” to be a commentator—not just clowns like Walter Cronkite. If you can type, think, and put together a sound commentary you can generate a audience the like of which Cronkite could only dream.
Imo the commited boomer communists in “journalism school” from that time are now running the show in the msm at least. Small corners such as this one may eventually get traction it’s a coin toss at best.
Eichmann had to be kept in a soundproofed glass box during his “trial” to prevent him from letting slip that most of his work for Hitler’s government had been as a liaison to the Zionist community of the time, many of whom comprised the then-Israeli government.
The life of Joe Biden and now his looming death, has been in service to the destruction of social trust. This inadvertently makes him a hero. That aside, while I agree that Biden was a useful idiot who became the Eichmann of Woke (good phrase), do not underestimate how malignant he was. To bolster his political fortunes, Biden falsely accused a man of killing his family in a drunken driving accident, by way of example. He richly deserves to die a prolonged, painful death for his many crimes against individuals and humanity. There has been a succession of events–Covid, a… Read more »
The half life of the calm before financial crisis’s are getting much shorter.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japan-bond-market-verge-collapse-after-worst-auction-1987
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-fed-quietly-buying-billions-112500917.html
The last one started in 2019 ( you could argue 2001 or 2008 never ended), but this time we decided to not admit it and just straight cover it up.
The Moody’s downgrade is one of the most underreported stories ever.
There’s a reason for that.
I remember the first downgrade in 2011. Following this crap has been my real job since 2008. Its why i own no stocks, even in my 401k. Stocks will be sacrificed to save bonds at some point. To add on to what zman said, this “evil” could never have gotten to the point of where it is if good people choose to do nothing. If the majority of the companies in the stock market are evil, and you invest in them, you’re supporting evil. People need to put their money where their mouth is.
A key feature of every evil and/or totalitarian system is how it degrades and then co-opts the people within it to maintain power. There is a myth that such systems rule solely by force. The truth is most have widespread support. It may require killing the dissidents to get to that point, to be clear, but in addition to a heavy hand there are carrots. In the GAE, that is money.
I concur. Also a warning: Europe and Japan will blow up before we do. Money from both will flow into our markets, so we’ll get a blow off top. But it ain’t gonna be real, just saying. The rush before the waterfall.
“People need to put their money where their mouth is.”
Where is that? That is the question.
At this point? Consume as little as possible. And if you can buy local and small business. Don’t get into debt, that just feeds the system/evil.
“Where is that?“
Find a kid in your community who is a real go-getter, and help him get capitalized. The fewer of us who end up dependent on the system, sitting in some cubicle somewhere, the better we will be to ride it out.
Great suggestion.
Excellent point Steve, a lot of young men could use a not idiot mentor. Seems like it used to happen at work, but i never had that exp. except working for my dad. Best teacher i’ve had in life.
If you have been following stocks for any length of time, you have to have come to the realization that stocks have decoupled from whatever the company does. For a while in 2008, the p/E went over 100, that is, you buy a stock which, on fundamentals, will return your investment in 100 years, not including inflation. Today it’s in the mid 20s? When Reagan took office it was in single digits?
That’s why front running has become as effective as it is. Why Gamestop worked. It’s not about the company. It’s about the scam.
It’s all a scam and the only winning move is not to play.
F is 8.6, VZ is 10.5, RIO is 8.8 You gotta look around.
My point: No honor among thieves. Eventually the evil will eat the underlings in self perpetuation of itself. Better to never take part.
The debt is impossible to ever repay. If the country could have gotten the spending down it could have at least maintained the viability of the bond market. The deficit economy will turn the bond market into a farce over time and make their repayment suspect. The downgrade is way overdue. The inability to cut spending is the sign the end is near.
Its already a farce. QE when you cut out all the fancy words is essentially the market will not buy our bonds at interest rates we think we should get, so we’re just going to set rates at 0. If they think they can dictate the market, why wouldn’t they be able to dictate to you?
“Everything D.C. does now is to push off that inevitable day of reckoning.”
Perhaps all for the best. Of course, I’m betting I won’t be around. The country needs pain, real pain to wake up and reorganize.
The only thing holding the country together now is its relative wealth. I don’t think it survives another economic cataclysm no matter how authoritarian it becomes in trying to hold things together. I likely won’t be around, either, but that seems less certain than just a few years ago.
Not sure either…but I take heart from other countries’ examples. Take Argentina. They’ve been a basket case for decades, but seem to be turning the page on their bad old ways. Their experiment is not over yet, but the speed of reform is refreshing.
I’m not convinced the pain will be as bad for “us” as it will be for the politicos and sheeple, though. When the EBT cards start getting declined, those who have not made plans will have to count on luck to get through. The grasshoppers will feel a lot of pain, yes, but the ants will mostly get by just fine.
No argument, but I really am not looking forward to having to fend off roving hordes of bandits or living behind walls with hire security. These type of living scenarios seem common in failed States.
True, but most dystopian novels are completely unrealistic. Shut off the power and in days the diseases the sanitation system has kept in check are running rampant.
The hordes soon become the more manageable gangs and warlords that Selco talks about. But in a country much more spread out. The fuel required to get much further than the exurbs is just too precious to squander.
The plan/reality has been to demonize whites, who are the ants, and to take their stuff and give it to the nons, who are the grasshoppers. That doesn’t seem to be off the table, either. As Compsci mentioned, look at how the ants live in Latin America: behind heavily guarded gates wrapped in barb wire and driven by armed guards on the constant look out for kidnappers. That’s not fine with me.
I never thought the planned redistribution would be easy, and it very well may be impossible, but that is/was the future planned for us.
I understand that’s the plan. If the collapse so many predict comes to pass, the grasshoppers will be no more. The only question is whether enough ants pull through to make a difference.
There are about a million other things that will fail before the EBT cards. That might be the last thing standing. If a loaf of bread is $5,000, then the accounts will be loaded up with $200,000 a month.
I assume electricity would go down early in such a doomsday scenario. Could an EBT transaction be processed without electricity? Would there be food left on the shelves to buy if it could be?
They used to be called food stamps for a reason. And barring an all out nuclear exchange that empties all the silos, or a big asteroid, the electricity will never be 100% off everywhere.
How long does the power have to be off for things to degrade to the point that there is no point in turning it back on?
People will always want the power back on. Which is why it always will be on, somewhere, at least some of the time.
I agree that most if not all of what we were told about the Cold War were myths and psyops.
BUT I would say the Russian Communists/Bolsheviks were the greater evil at the time. Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Yagoda, Kaganovich, etc. This is what it looks like when the “woke” are unleashed in all their bloody hatred masked in moral piety.
They were so evil, that a strong case can be made that it would’ve been a better world if they were destroyed instead of the Nazis in WWII as Patton said before being whacked.
I don’t disagree at all. But to be clear, just because the communists were far worse doesn’t mean we were good. A lot of the post-Cold War oppression was kept in abeyance until it was safe to unleash it.
Biden is the archetypal post-civil rights American politician. A smirking car salesman who saw his chance as a mediocrity to make it big. To do so by happily being a puppet, enrich himself, and “represent” his country by totally and utterly selling them out and reducing the founding stock to a besieged minority. And to present this as a good thing! He deserves the lowest pit of Hell.
I hope that one day we can finally stop using the reference frame of our enemies and can come up with some other ultimate evil than the Nazis.
As for Eichman, he did not deny the Holocaust. After he was properly tortured in an Israeli prison. Banality of evil my ass.
Yes I saw jaque ellul say something about the ovens as being parting the technocratic society and cried a little. It practically replaced the resurrection as the great event of history
I still remember after Brandon “won” the election and started appointing people, one shitlib commentator gushed about how “normal” the people were compared to the meanies that Trump hired (of course, by 2020, the people in the White House were third-rate at best, and they all were working to destroy Trump). The normal people that this person was talking about, of course, were people like Mayorkas and Blinken. Total freaks. And long after Joe Biden is dead, hopefully soon, judged by God and sent to his rightful place, these freaks will still be out there, and most importantly, so will… Read more »
“Mayorkas and Blinken. Total freaks.”
Is “total freaks” the phrase that we are using now for the more obvious descriptor?
Those were just the freaks who were low-key enough to ride it out. The real freaks like Brinton got cut.
Absolutely true that a malevolent spirit animates these persons.
“malevolent spirit”
Our ancestors knew. They fought. They lost, because they did not fight hard enough because they were too comfortable and arrogant to understand that it was utterly existential. It’s long, but read the whole thing. So many books down the memory, fished out and put into the light by megachad Ron Unz.
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-father-charles-coughlin/
This is why the Russians are going to win. They don’t talk about it in public, but they know and they are NEVER going to let these minions of Satan rule over them ever again.
Mayorkas is not a freak, he is a demon. It is advantageous to know what demons in the real world look like.
And he’s still walking free.
If Buttplug Pete “breastfeeding” his adopted kid in the Awful Orifice isn’t normal, I don’t know what is…
so few people – today – recognize evil. i suspect many/most of them don’t even believe it exists.
human nature is amoral; it lies in primordial survival instincts. genocide is a feature, not a flaw.
Exactly, people are neither good nor bad, but can be influenced. The major organs of our society have been pushing people towards evil for some time. It’s gonna be ugly
Because most people refuse to acknowledge the existence of evil, let alone their own, just how quickly things devolve will be a shock to a lot of people. Yes, it’s a dystopian trope to expect others to attack you and try to take anything you have, but it’s also a truth based on centuries of human behavior. No, most people aren’t ‘good at heart’ and that lie is totally counter to biblical teaching yet pushed the most by today’s churchian.
indeed. That is why the meme of NPC (non player characters) has been going around for some time. We all remember the cruelness of high school and such, but the difference between and evolved human and one who never moves beyond is realizing that cruelness can easily just be put back right on you. Generally something has to happen for one to get to this point: “It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful… Read more »
The great Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A man for our times.
to be good, one must be self-reflective. Most people don’t have that kind of intelligence.
> so few people – today – recognize evil. i suspect many/most of them don’t even believe it exists.
Most people tend to project their morality on others. It is why most good people are easy victims because they can’t envision actual malicious intent. Conversely, it helps to encourage evil behavior among anti-social individuals because in their minds, “everybody else does it.”
P.S. This is why our ancestors were smart to immediately remove anti-social individuals and bloodlines from the gene pool. Imo, more crimes should require the death penalty than just murder.
they are brainwashed to see evil as good and good as evil.
“accuse ordinary Americans of being evil, for the crime of living their lives as white people”
It’s getting harder and harder to not end up tied to a stake in the center of town with kindling around your feet and Elizabeth Warren holding a torch. The Reign of Terror ended when your average Frenchman looked at the guillotine and said, that could be me next.
right. one realizes that if you think “trans” are insane or if you don’t have a complimentary word about saints floyd or karmelo, then there are A LOT of “liberals” who think fervently think you should die.
Why do so many still parrot the jewish accusation that German national socialism was evil?
We too wish to rid our nation of aliens and subversives, and we have all fantasized about what we would do to them given the chance.
Does that make us evil? I think not.
If we were throwing Belorussian children into burning village huts and murdering 250,000 civilians in Warsaw, would that make us evil?
Dont forget about the lampshades and soap!
And Anne frank, won’t someone please remember Anne frank and her passion?!?!
The American Right got onboard with the evil Nazi narrative. The American Left NEVER got onboard with the evil Commie narrative in the slightest. Quite the contrary, it was anti-Communist was who the real monster.
Excellent essay, Z. I’ve believed for quite some time that the U.S. is a zealous, ideological empire, but its ideological zealotry is cloaked by the liberal language of its founding and Constitution. Your point about politicians running cover for “The System” by giving it a smiling, happy face was true in other ideological systems as well, like the USSR. Not for nothing did many Soviets look fondly on “Uncle Joe” Stalin, so it’s interesting that we had our own “Uncle Joe.” Of course, when comparing the two “Uncle Joes,” I am reminded of Marx’s pity observation that history repeats itself… Read more »
The only thing the Nazis did wrong was lose the war.
I look forward to the day when someone on our side is vindictive enough to actually seek justice as the jews did with dullards like Eichman.
Our managers are never held accountable for any of the lies and law breaking they have done.
Biden was a known liar who got promoted to be the President.
We are left depending on morons and cross eyed incompetents to tell us there is nothing to see here folks. MAGA baby.
This. No more excuses for the “liberals” about their supposed good intentions and naivete. They are among the worst and vicious criminals in human history.
Dark Brandon. He was pure evil. As for managerialism, someone hires, promotes and rewards the managers. We know who they are. You can follow the money and you can see who sits on the board. The Regime creates and relies upon sniveling cowards. I once had a conversation with a man from Montenegro. He told me his story of how he came here. In the mid 90s he was an equivalent of a green beret. One night, he and his unit were in a firefight and they found themselves surrounded in the dark. In the hellstorm he was in a… Read more »
It’s the conservative men who I think are the lowest cowards. Libs like Biden or Clinton or waltz are almost forgivable because they actually beleive in multiracialismZ it’s conservatives that should know better. And it’s not even the job or the wife, it seems to be being seen as clinging to a morality that most people say is past; that mankind has progressed and we all see that whites must view the foreigner as closer to him as their own even their own children.these men would rather see their children and grandchildren engulfed and destroyed by tides of color than… Read more »
I think you give the conservatives too much credit for having or holding ideals. If we look at the results the only ideal that comes out of Washington is “Where’s Mine”. They all appear to be amoral; only believing in what will help themselves.
If you read Brutus 1 of the Anti-Federalist papers, he predicted all of this in 1787. He wrote that men would turn against the country for their own gain once they became wealthy enough.
I have to admit I don’t have much sympathy for Biden. He was a corrupt, lying dirtbag politician from the very beginning and perhaps much worse in his private life. Further, it seems White people will never be free of the shackles of slavery or the holohoax.
It’s so easy a caveman can do it. Take almost any ordinary schlub and give him “status”, make him “important”, and you can get him to do almost anything.
In an earlier comment I omitted this point, which is important:
We are now at the stage where obvious truths are not obvious truths until officialdom declares them to be so. Everyone saw Biden’s blatant frailty/dementia, but it was not a reality until the Regime and its propaganda organs officially declared it. That’s some real Soviet shit there. Will he be unpersoned next? It will depend on how the official pronouncement of the obvious objective reality goes.
‘He was a simpleton and braggard, but he would ruthlessly execute his instructions and do so in a way that was hard for the people to hate’ I grok your point about Tater Joe’s gladhanding style, and how easily humans accept evil as just another job, seeing as how We’re On The Right Side of History . . . but sublimation? It all seemed pretty damned plain to me. How quickly folks forget JoJo up on that red-and-black stage, railing and screeching against any and all who failed to love progressivism, feminism, and the marvelous and wondrous Reset. It was… Read more »
I’ll never get tired of saying it: it’s white men that are the problem. We have allowed this to happen.
Joe Biden is the Progressive son of Colonel Kurtz, grandson of Mr. Kurtz. He was worshipped by the Natives until he wasn’t. His last thoughts should be about the horrors he helped perpetuate.
I am bewildered by the relative success of the BKCPP propaganda organs’ effort to frame the installation of Dementia Joe as the result of his gang’s successful subterfuge. That husk of Dorian Gray was soiling himself in front of cameras from day one and they had to hide him in a basement while they printed up mountains of fraudulent ballots. The admin should say so publicly and repeatedly. Show the news videos of everyone ignoring him and fawning over Obama at various State events. No one with an IQ high enough to bring a fork to their own mouth believed… Read more »
If communism, fascism and liberal democracy–or whatever you want to call it–are evil systems, what does that say about technologically sophisticated postmodernity? Can there be a social system in this epoch that isn’t evil?
Good point. Technology has assured there can be no freedom.
Social system? Absolutely. Control/governmental system? Probably not.
It does appear that man is unable to build such a system. We are flawed beings.
One thought on managerialism…it excels at breaking processes down so each step is done most efficiently by a specialist. In this context that also removes “total” responsibility for outcome from individuals. “I just processed transit manifests and scheduled trains”–that these trains ended up at Auschwitz or Sobibor was not that individuals responsibility. Gas chambers, run minimally by SS staff evolved because the Einsatzgruppen (the one group not removed from the actual business of killing), despite the number of certified sociopaths, were effectively losing their minds. Our modern, massive bureaucracies operate the same way…most completely removed from the havoc they create.
I don’t know why they down-voted you because I think this is spot-on.
It was until he got to the Holohoax gas chambers bit.
I didn’t see that. It wasn’t a hoax.
Bake me six million pizzas.
I also don’t know why you got downvoted. Himmler absolutely didn’t want any enthusiasm in this sort of work — he wanted people who followed orders punctiliously. Himmler himself had distaste for this work — but orders were orders.
“Einsatzgruppen (the one group not removed from the actual business of killing), despite the number of certified sociopaths, were effectively losing their minds.”
This of course, and the fact that roving groups of sociopaths killing thousands across newly conquered territories was a public spectacle, a “bad look”, and eventually would cause resistance in the populace. Much more efficient to “deport” such undesirables to remote camps for elimination out of public sight.
Einsatzgruppen…, despite the number of certified sociopaths, were effectively losing their minds.
Remember, the Industrial wars were Brothers wars. Since “diversity is our strength” we won’t have that problem now will we? /s, lol, {palm slap} etc.
The “banality of evil” only applies because, despite all evidence to the contrary, people still somehow expect to see evidence of people’s character on their faces. And yes, sometimes evil people are extremely ugly (see Harvey Weinstein) so it’s easy to say “physiognomy is real.” But in reality, there are far more evil people whose faces reflect their confidence in themselves and their place on the ‘right side of history.’ Almost all politicians and high-level managers are more like Dorian Gray, presenting the money, self confidence, and power that backstop their lies and crimes in a smooth public visage. And… Read more »
Some of this reaction is “recency bias”, some is legitimate outrage. We have had many mediocre “machine politicians” become President – A. Johnson, Hayes, Arthur, McKinley, Taft, Truman, Obama and recently Biden (I’m probably missing some). And corruption isn’t a new thing. I think the main difference now is the absolute size and power of the Federal Government – bad Presidents can do more damage. Also, Arthur, McKinley and Truman didn’t hate Americans, so they ended up outperforming expectations. Biden just hates us, probably because he is so mediocre.
Sorry to be that guy, but I feel I have to bring the Bushes into this
I see Biden and the bushes as basically the same
I don’t think he does he just is indifferent to race consciously. In a multi racial game or set of rules, you are limited to caring about very few other people. “Us” or “we” is really a hug mob of individuals. I don’t think Biden hated whites any more than any conservative who is more into ideology compared to tribe
I don’t think the use of the word “banality” in this context is useful. It tends to undersell the impact of the evil that Biden has wrought. No one is going to rise up and fight to the death against a “banal” tyrant. The word actually means boring or lacking in originality. Biden played a seminal role in the mRNA rollout which has infected billions with this time-released poison. That death toll will eventually number in the hundreds of millions or higher; far more than anything Hitler, Stalin, or Mao could ever dream of. Biden is megadeath personified.
The original Copium.
“It was hard to hate men like Eichmann, even after their actions had been universally condemned, because they were not obviously evil men.” The Third Reich had little use for evil men. It needed capable technocrats and functionaries — people like Speer and Heydrich. Eichmann’s defence was that he was “just following orders.” Which was correct — he was just following orders. So were Himmler, Heydrich, and Speer. The demons in hell will also just be following orders — their mortgages and middle-class lifestyle in hell might otherwise be endangered. You have to go along to get along. Arendt’s Eichmann… Read more »
This post brings an intriguing perspective on Arendt’s “banality of evil” and applies it in a modern context that’s both unsettling and revealing. The comparison between Eichmann and Biden is provocative, highlighting how individuals who may not be overtly malicious can still play pivotal roles in sustaining systems of harm. It’s an important reminder that the true danger of ideologies isn’t always in the fanatical leaders, but in the millions of ordinary people who, like Eichmann, unquestioningly serve the machinery of oppression, thinking of themselves as just doing their jobs. That said, I think the analogy with Joe Biden, while… Read more »
The evils of fascism and communism stem from their embrace of Social Darwinism, each with its own twist. Once people become cogs, there is no outrage that won’t happen.
“stem from their embrace of Social Darwinism”
Care to extend a bit?
This tells it perfectly
Hannah Arendt correctly saw the Eichmann trial as a turning point in the moral evolution of Jewish people, as their desire for revenge was taking them down the exact same path that had animated the Communists and Fascists. We now see the fruition of this thinking as we watch the Israelis slaughter tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian women and children.
they were/are the communists and finance globalists.
…thought better of it…