The Mailbag

Posted on August 27, 2021 by thezman

One of the questions I did not get to in the show was one about why Afghanistan is so attractive to empires. The British, Soviets and now the Americans have come to a bad end trying to tame the Afghans. Ho back further and you have the Persians, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Mongols and so on. The story of Afghanistan is the story of conquest and the survival of that conquest. Each conqueror leaving something behind, but never really changing the area all that much.

In the before times, the main reason to conquer the area was its location between Central and South Asia. The Silk Road that connected Asia with the Middle east and Europe runs through Afghanistan. It is a strategic bottleneck that made Afghanistan so important to the pre-modern world. It also is rich in things that people have tended to desire like lapis lazuli in the olden times. Today it has valuable deposits of rare earth metals and things like lithium, used in modern production.

Of course, for the British, Soviets and American, it is the location near the Middle East that is the attraction. For over a century know, controlling the Arabian Sea has been critical to controlling the flow of oil. Afghanistan offers a nice launching pad to exert influence on the region. The Americans imagined it becoming a modern outpost of the empire to counter the ambitions of Iran. Instead, it was just another example of how empires inevitable overextend and bankrupt themselves.

I suspect another reason the place appeals to Westerners so much is that it operates outside of civilization. The Afghans are not Asian, and they are not European, even despite the history of invasion. The genes of the conquerors have been absorbed in varying degrees, but the population remains unique. The core of Afghan DNA dates to the founding population somewhere in the Neolithic. In other words, the Afghans stubbornly remain unconquered, despite it all.

For people who root their theology in the belief that man in the state of nature is naturally cooperative, the uncivilized world of Central Asia is like catnip. if you think you can remake the world in your image, what better place to start than a place that remains outside the grip of modernity? While many supported the Afghan adventure for mundane reasons like greed and influence, many supported the project because they thought they could prove the key points of their faith.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

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This Week’s Show

Contents

Opening
Voting
Young People
Covidians
Trump
Clarification
Out Of Africa
Headphones
Nick Fuentes
Million Dollars
Debating
Thank You

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

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Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/CaHBlYnzhY4

Peak Israel, Peak Empire

Posted on August 26, 2021 by thezman

There is an old expression about the Bolshevik revolution that says it was made by Jewish brains, Latvian bayonets, and Russian stupidity. There is a lot of truth to it, as the ethnic makeup of the revolution was not very Russian. One way to look at the revolution is as a revolt of subject people against their old masters. This was made possible by the cupidity and stupidity of the Russian elites. A very similar thing is happening in the American empire, just at a slower pace.

This formulation can also apply to the Middle East. For a long time now, the history of the region has been shaped by a combination of Israeli strategy, Saudi Arabian oil, and American force. It is reasonable to say that America would have no presence in the region if not for Israel. The creation of the Jewish state in 1948 set the region on fire, drawing in the Americans and Russian. Oil and gas, of course, is what made the region vital in the long battle between the two empires.

Since the Cold War ended, the primary reason for US involvement has been Israeli intrigue and Saudi oil production. The first crusade in Iraq was about protecting the oil and gas interests. The second crusade was about changing the balance of power in the region to meet Israel security needs. The crusade in Afghanistan was mostly about containing Iran, despite the rhetoric. Look at a map and it is easy to see that it would be a useful launching pad for air strikes against the Iranians.

The collapse of Afghanistan is getting a lot attention, but it is part of a larger collapse of the regional order. Israel, for example, has undergone a political revolution of sorts with the end of the Netanyahu regime. The new prime minister is the product of the neo-liberal order, rather than the fight for independence. He got rich selling software in America and his parents were left-wing fanatics from San Francisco. He is a man of the global managerial class rather than the local elite.

On the Saudi side of things, the walls continue to close in as their stranglehold on the oil and gas market collapses. New technology has opened up vast reserves in North America, so the need for Saudi oil has declined. Iran’s Caspian Sea natural gas deposit will put her on even footing with the Saudis. That leg of the triumvirate driving regional politics is no longer the gatekeeper of the world’s energy supply. Soon, they will be just another gas station selling a commodity on the world market.

Taken together, the old combination of Israeli strategy, Saudi Arabian oil and American force is about to unravel. America still has troops staged in Syria and Iraq, but the writing is on the wall there too. It also means Israel as the primary mover and shaker in the region is coming to an end. Without American firepower and the Saudi control of energy politics, Israeli is just another country in the region. Throw in the Russian-Iranian partnership and the Middle East is going to look very different.

This is one reason the neoconservatives have been trying to restart the Cold War with the Russians. Given the their involvement in the Middle East, a new contest with them would draw America back into the region. It was also why Israel talked Trump into dumping the Iran deal. Normalization of relations between Europe and Iran makes war with Iran impossible. If that is not an option, then there is little point in America maintaining a military presence in the region.

What we may be seeing is peak Israel. For generations, Israel has occupied the center of American politics. During the Cold War, the three “I’s” of politics were Israel, Indiana, and Ireland. After the Cold War it was Israel, India, and Investment Banking. It is fair to say that what passes for conservatism in America is just low-tax Zionism. The collapse of American involvement in the region means there is little reason to make Israel the focal point of American politics.

This is no small thing. The Republicans are celebrating the bad fortune of Biden and the Democrats over Afghanistan, but this is very bad for them. During the Cold War, the left-side of the American ruling elite was allowed a free hand in domestic affairs and the right-side ran foreign affairs. The end of the Soviet empire left the right-side without a reason to exist, so we got the crusades against Islam for the last 30 years. Suddenly, the only reason to vote Republican has gone away.

It is not all roses for the left-side either. Without the distraction of endless war, the focus will be on domestic issues. All of those people who were titillated by the prospect of “glassing” various countries can now focus their energy on the people trying to turn their sons into girls. America has been at war with someone for close to a century now and this has allowed the Left to remake the country. It also allowed them to underwrite their schemes with the proceeds of empire.

For seventy years, Israel has played an enormous role in the politics of the American empire, but that seems to be coming to an end. It may be that Trump’s decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem was the top of Israeli influence. The fading of the American empire, particularly in the Middle East, means the influence of Israel on the world must fade with it. It also means the Israelis will have to seek new partners in their endless game of neighborhood politics. America is no longer useful.

The crackdown by the oligarchs on dissidents has had the happy result of a proliferation of new ways to support your favorite creator. If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

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The Year Of No Emperor

Posted on August 25, 2021 by thezman

In the year 69 AD, four emperors ruled the Roman Empire in succession after the death of emperor Nero. After being declared an enemy of the state, Nero fled Rome, but then committed suicide. This ended the Julio-Claudian line and created a power vacuum that was first filled by Servius Galba. He was soon killed by the Praetorian Guard and then the Senate appointed Marcus Salvius Otho, who quickly committed suicide. Then came Vitellius and finally Vespasian, who founded the Flavian dynasty.

Despite the chaos, this would be looked upon as a transition period. This was the second dynasty in the Principate period that set the table for the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, which was arguably the empire’s greatest period. This was the phase commonly known as the “Five Good Emperors”. It is a good example of how present chaos can often be seen as the end of something, but in reality, it is the beginning of a new phase in the life of society or an empire in the case of Rome.

This is worth considering in the present moment. There is no doubt that Joe Biden cannot survive his term in office. Prior to his installation, no one thought he would run for a second term, but the hope was he could offer a quiet period so the political class could settle on someone to take the job. Joe Biden was supposed to be the resting period after the terror of Trump. Instead, the Biden rule is turning out to be far more chaotic, largely due to his failing mental health.

There are four ways to remove a sitting president. One is impeachment, which is off the table for obvious reasons. The Democrats will never do it and the Republicans, if they regained the House and Senate, are too stupid and corrupt to do it. That leaves resignation, the 25th Amendment and assassination. All three of these options are interlaced, in that the threat of the third option by the security services would force one of the first two options. The second option could force the first.

The problem with removing Biden is that the replacement is probably worse than an old man with dementia. Kamala Harris was selected because Silicon Valley executives bribed the Biden people. She represents their interests and she had the backing of key Clinton people. The trouble is she has thus far refused to grow into the job and remains a noisy moron who has little imperial support. The job of president is as the pitchman for the party, and she is too obnoxious to sell anything.

Even though the ruling elite despise the people over whom they rule, especially the white population, they are trapped in the logic of their own rhetoric. Like the emperors during the Principate, they must keep up appearances. Those early Roman emperors made a show of maintaining the Senate and the republic structures, even though they exercised exclusive power. In the American empire, the ruling elite has to maintain the polite fiction of participatory democracy.

What this means is that the removal of Biden will require a plan to quickly remove Harris and replace her with someone acceptable. Harris had zero support as a candidate in her own party. The regime media will paint her as the fulfillment of the prophecies, but the public would quickly turn on her. Installing someone who has no constituency in the ruling class, much less the public at large, makes a mockery of their claims to democracy, so Harris can be nothing more than a placeholder.

The 25th Amendment creates a process in which the legislative branch negotiates with itself on a compromise candidate to solve the crisis of an incapacitated or deranged president. There is a 21-day window for the legislature to evaluate the president’s fitness to serve. In reality, this is a negotiation window. In theory, they could force on Harris a VP that would be a co-president. The assumption being that if she got out of line, she would be removed and replaced like Biden.

All of this underscores the fact that the current regime running the American empire has the same problem Rome had with Nero. The Claudian’s had run out of competent options for emperor. Once Nero was removed, there was no option that was acceptable to the natural constituencies of the empire. This is the problem the current regime faces in Washington with Biden. Remove him from office and the scenarios look more like chaos than a solution. No one is literally better than Harris.

This may be where the American empire charts a new course. We may be headed to a period of no emperor. Biden will remain in office, doing less and less until he is reduced to a concept, rather than a real person. He will be the virtual president. Meanwhile, the two sides of the uniparty will push forward their plans to reorganize the empire to fit their image of themselves. The formerly $3.5T “Build Back Better” plan, which is now $5T, just moved along in the House, meaning it will pass this year.

This means the other side of the uniparty, the Republicans, will be allowed to “win” the midterms next fall. They will get to manage the implementation of a massive spending bill that is not actually written. That’s right. This massive reorganization plan for the empire is not written down anywhere. It is just a framework to be filled in after it passes and is signed into law. The 2024 “election” will be over how best to finish the work of reorganizing the empire with a new emperor.

Whether or not this year of no emperor will be looked at in the same way as the Year of Four Emperors, which transitioned into the Flavian and Antonine dynasties, is unknown, just as it was unknown in 69 AD. This age could be analogous to Year of the Six Emperors, which occurred during the Crisis of the Third Century. This year of no emperor could be the beginning of the end or just the end of the beginning. Whatever comes next, however, will be nothing like the present or past.

The Death Of Citizenism

Posted on August 24, 2021 by thezman

Note On Comments: Many have complained about the number of comments that end up in moderation. There is not much I can do about it, but one way to avoid this trap is to avoid certain language like profanity. The spam filter gets triggered by the colorful use of euphemisms. Links to images and movies is another trigger. They tend to go right to the trash bin without hitting moderation.

For at least two decades there has been a debate on the Right, broadly defined, about how to define America and the citizen. On one side are the intellectual descendants of Harry Jaffa, who argued America is just an idea, so a citizen is someone who agrees with that idea. On the other side are the people who take the view of the Founders who held the traditional view of nationhood. America is the product of a people who secured the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.

A middle ground was staked out twenty years ago by Steve Sailer. He came up with an idea he called “citizenism” which says “Americans should be biased in favor of the welfare of our current fellow citizens over that of the six billion foreigners.” Therefore, “our leaders have a duty to current citizens and their descendants over the interests of prospective citizens and their descendants”. This is a definition that allows for the appreciation of racial differences between the current citizens.

Sailer’s definition is reactive, more than objective. He was trying at the time to put space between himself and other race realists. He wanted to talk honestly and openly about racial differences without being lumped in with people like Jared Taylor, who he considered to be a white nationalist. Sailer and Jared Taylor had an exchange back in 2005 on this topic as well as Taylor’s book The Color of Crime. Here are some bits of this debate here, here and here.

Fifteen years on, we can look at the three sides of this dispute with the benefit of hindsight and see who was closer to the truth. The “nation of ideas” side is looking rather shabby, as the West lurches into despotism in an effort to keep the wildly diverse population from destroying itself. The suspension of civil liberties, constant surveillance and state sanctioned domestic terrorism suggest that the idea at the heart of this new definition of the nation is authoritarianism.

Further, the “nation of ideas” concept was always a Marxist notion. Instead of society being the product of economic relations, the nation of ideas people define society as cultural relations. This is right out of the cultural Marxist handbook. The main difference is the Left thinks that culture is the product of institutions while the Right thinks it is the product of magic. While both sides are wrong about the source of culture, the Left was smart enough to seize the institutions.

The traditionalists who claim a nation is the product of a people, held together by a shared history and kinship have not been proven correct, but their claims against a nation of ideas is supported by present reality. Time will tell if the West devolves into tribal camps that judge their relations with other groups purely through the lens of tribal self-interest, but that is the current direction. At the minimum, the Jared Taylor camp was right about identity politics and what is means for white people.

As far as citizenism, it may be the biggest loser. In his exchange with Jared Taylor, Steve Sailer wrote, “And yet, this manner of thinking, this dismissal of objective reality in favor of assessing whose side the speaker is on, is probably as popular today in America as it was in Berlin and Moscow in Orwell’s day.” Sailer was comparing Orwell’s description of Nazism with Taylor’s brand of white nationalism. In other words, these views contrast with objective reality.

It is turns out that the citizenism can only work if everyone involved steadfastly and fanatically rejects objective reality. For example, they must refuse to consider that what leaders will do is not always in line with what you think they ought to do. Further, the “best interests of the current citizens” is a normative statement, whose definition is based on the perspective of the speaker. The universalist concept of best interest at the heart of citizenism is as real as the unicorn.

To some degree, this form of bourgeoise objectivism has always functioned as a form of escapism where the objectivist gets to be both right and taboo. In this case, he gets to speak candidly about the human condition from the perspective of biology but avoid being sanctioned by the people who must deny this reality. In other words, it assumes there is an exception to morality, where you can avoid official sanction over impure thoughts if you can prove those thoughts to be correct.

This is a world that denies the reality of the prevailing orthodoxy, thus denying objective reality with regards to human relations. Every society has its moral framework that is rooted in its sense of identity. This is largely controlled by the ruling class, which is a feature of every society, regardless of politics. The morality of the people in charge of the West requires us to deny biology and they make no exceptions. That is a reality one must accept before engaging in any analysis of politics.

In the end, Steve Sailer’s approach was rooted in a misunderstanding of what lies behind things like open borders. It was not a desire for mundane things like a desire to save the world or a demand for cheap labor. At the heart of the neoliberal project is the assertion that humans are infinitely adaptable to their culture. This is the unequivocal denial of biological reality. This is why citizenism was doomed from the start. It offered a compromise that could never be tolerated, much less accepted.

In the end, the nation of ideas side was probably more realistic than their critics on the biological reality side. They accepted the premise of cultural Marxism, which is that control of the institutions is what matters in current politics. They simply lacked the intelligence and courage to put their ideas into practice. As a result, the West is headed into the darkness of radicalism. If the West is to survive, Western man must accept biological reality and the reality of those who oppose him.

Great Debate

Posted on August 23, 2021 by thezman

Note: We have a cornucopia of new content this week. The Taki post is about our new moral imperative to love strangers over our friends and family. Then there is the Sunday podcast up behind the green door. There is a bonus post up this morning on the cult sci-fi move The Matrix. This has gone out to Buy Me A Beer patrons as well.

Almost twenty years ago, John Derbyshire reviewed Kevin MacDonald’s book Culture of Critique for American Conservative. It has one of the best headlines ever written for a right-wing publication. The review itself was not favorable to MacDonald’s theory on Jewish evolutionary strategy, so it has been condemned by anti-Semites, which is a shame because it offers an important insight. For some, the “Jew thing” is a debilitating neurosis that cripples the victim’s ability to reason.

An example of this was on display Saturday night when Jared Taylor debated E. Michael Jones on the question of race. Specifically, the topic was “is race real and does it matter?” Taylor was on the side of race realism and Jones was supposed to be on the side of race denialism. It did not quite work out that way as Jones quickly shifted the conversation away from race to his own theories about the Jews. E. Michael Jones has a very serious case of the Jew thing.

The format was for each man to give a 20-minute opening presentation and then they would take turns responding to one another. Taylor was in the affirmative, so he went first and put on a near perfect presentation explaining the biological reality of race and the societal implications of racial differences. Even for those very familiar with the human sciences, it was an entertaining and informative presentation. It is the sort of thing you can send around to people curious the topic.

Jones opened up with a strange story about daylight savings time in Indiana in order to establish what he calls categories of the mind. These are definitions we invent that have no relation to physical reality. It appears he was trying to reformulate the logical positivists tripartite classification of knowledge. There are things that are tautologically true, things that are true because of an agreed upon set of logical rules and then things that are cognitively meaningless.

Jones reformulates it to be things that are categories of the mind and things he thinks ought to be important. For example, race, regardless of the biological realty behind it, is a category of the mind. It matters only because we think about it, like daylight savings time or the time of day. Catholic dogma, on the other hand, matters whether we think of it or not, so we ought to think about it. Of course, anything that Jones does not like is declared a category of the mind and he dismisses it.

There is an argument that much of what gets put into the category of race is contextual, a result of history and culture. This is the basis of biological denialism on the Left, where they claim differences in the races and sexes are cultural artifacts. The problem with this is that it conflates two related, but cognitively different things. Biological race, in this case, is different from social concepts of race. By conflating the two, biology is made to disappear in the fog of social criticism regarding race.

This was the game Jones was playing. He made a lot of noise about how race is used to harm white societies, so he agued race must be ignored. Here he commits a second logical fallacy. Even if discussions of race are engineered to harm white interests, it does not logically follow that white people should deny the reality of race. This is where the Jew thing begins to pop. Jones asserts that Jews invented the concept of race to harm white people, so the Jew thing requires him to oppose race.

After the opening statements, the second hour was mostly Jones ranting and raving about Jews, even dropping some epithets along the way. Whenever the moderator would return the conversation to the topic, Jones would go off on a rant about how the Jews were the great enemy and we must pretend race is not real in order to defend the white race from Jews. Along the way he conceded everything Taylor said about the reality of race, but Jones kept insisting it should not matter.

In all the noise and distraction what became clear is that Jones knows very little about race or race realism. He also made bizarre claims about the subject. For example, he claimed race was introduced in America by Jews. He also claimed the ancients had no concept of race. This is left-wing nonsense that has no basis in fact. His comments about intelligence revealed he knows nothing about the topic. His claims were the sorts of things that work on stupid people who share his beliefs.

This is the tragedy of the Jew thing. Once the victim is afflicted with it, they can think of nothing other than the subject of their obsession. The debate was supposed to be about race, but Jones kept trying to make it about Jews. Not just about Jews in the racial context either. Like a dog returning to his vomit, Jones kept returning to his pet theory that Judaism is a conspiracy against the world. Not Jews, as according Jones race is not real, but Judaism, which is like a magic spell that he fights alone.

Of course, Jones has his fans. That is the other side of the Jew thing. People with it will overlook anything in those who supply them with content. His mad hatter act is lost on his fans, who only hear the J-word when he speaks. You get the sense that those with the Jew thing will become physically ill if they are not constantly hearing anti-Semitic material, so they need it constantly pipped into their brains. As a result a bellowing crackpot like Jones gets their full attention.

There are people who have reasoned critiques of Jews in Western societies. There are lots of Jews who have addressed the issue. It is a legitimate question, but one gets the sense that the mission of E. Michael Jones is to make it impossible to have a reasoned discussion on the topic. After all, who would want to be lumped in with a mad man who screams at the Passover display at the local grocery store? Jones manages to give bigotry a bad name, which is quite accomplishment.

All of that said, Jones has a point that he may not understand or simply not care to discuss and that is the reality of race is insufficient on its own. If being right about the facts of life mattered, this world would not exist. The radicals would have been routed a long time ago. Public discourse in all human society is about morality. Who are we and what defines us is what matters. Repeating the facts of biology can only matter if they have an impact on the morality of the people.

This has always been the failing of the Right. They have always assumed that once they proved their case, the other side would have no choice but to throw down their weapons and embrace them as brothers. This is not reality. Unless one can connect biological reality with morality, they exist in two separate domains. The race realists have yet to attempt this connection. This should be where the militant Christians step into the breech, but people like Jones make that difficult.

Finally, Jones made a big issue of Taylor’s unwillingness to address the question of Jews within the context of race realism. This is a fair point, but Jones then asserted it was because Taylor is part of the global Jewish conspiracy. This is where you cannot help but wonder if Jones does this to avoid defending his position. It is a distraction to deflect attention from his faulty logic to something else. This could have been an interesting gambit, but the Jew thing got the better of him.

The fact is, race realism makes a lot of sense when comparing Africans with all other human groups. Africans are the great outlier in the human family. It starts to break down when you compare other groups. East Asian are different from Europeans, but they bring none of the social pathology of Africans. What is the argument against mixing Asians with Europeans? What about West Asians and Europeans? This is a valid line off attack on the race realist position.

In the end, the debate is worth watching, if only for Taylor’s opening. It is a pity that Jones is not a more honest and balanced person, as it would be interesting to see someone approach this topic from traditional Christian ethics. If we are ever going to make the leap from facts to values, this is a debate that needs to be had. Otherwise, biological reality will remain ignored, even as we careen into the abyss. Maybe this debate will inspire someone to ponder the subject.

Theoxeny

Posted on August 22, 2021 by thezman

Theoxeny is a theme in Greek mythology in which mortals demonstrate their virtue by extending hospitality to a complete stranger, usually one who is humble like a beggar or a poor traveler. The stranger turns out to be a deity in disguise. The man who is a generous host, thus displaying his piety, is rewarded, while the man who refuses to extend hospitality is punished for his lack of piety.

For the ancient Greeks, hospitality toward foreigners and guests was a very important moral obligation. Zeus is sometimes called Zeus Xenios because of his role as a protector of strangers. The name Xenios is derived from xenos, the Greek word for “stranger.” To have Zeus, the ruler of the gods, embody the moral obligations around the treatment of strangers speaks to the importance of the practice to the Greeks.

In the new religion of the American ruling elite, there is a similar sort of ritualized hospitality toward strangers. It is primarily expressed in the form of open borders, the admittance of anyone who has a reason to settle in America. The reason does not need to make any sense. It just has to provide the ruling class with the opportunity to tell one another how much they care about these strangers….

The Revolution Part II

Posted on August 20, 2021 by thezman

Note: This coming Saturday, there will be an on-line debate between Jared Taylor and E. Michael Jones. The topic, “Is Race an Important Reality or a Fiction?”, will have Taylor on the race realist side and Jones on the race denialist side. The debate will be LIVE on Saturday, August 21, on Entropy, DLive, and Odysee at: 1pm L.A. / 4pm New York / 21:00 London / 22:00 Stockholm.

The show this week finishes up what I started last week. As is often the case, there was a lot I left out for time reasons. Reading about the Bolsheviks led me to reading a lot of Marxist writing, which inevitably led to reading some of the 20th century stuff that forms the basis of the cultural revolution. It has been a long time since I read the source material and I forgot much of it. It would be easy to do a series of shows on someone like Antonio Gramsci, for example.

One of the difficult things about doing overviews of this material is that so much of it relies on nonsense. It makes assumptions about the human condition that are at odds with reality, then it builds an imaginary world on top of it. The people attracted to it never see the nonsense, because they want the rest of it to be true. Read 20th century political philosophy and you quickly come to the conclusion that human society needs an official religion that is enforced without equivocation.

It reminds me of something Ed Dutton said about the sorts of people drawn to things like anti-fascism. They have disorganized, chaotic minds and need the structure of religion to focus their energy onto something useful. When religion faded, what replaced it was ideology, which focuses their energy on their fellow citizens, who they see as enemies of their new faith. The same impulses that gave us cathedrals now gives us mobs tearing down statues hoping for some grace.

This coincides with the fact that western man started getting dumber around the same time that Christianity started to fade. The intellectual history since that point has been about finding a suitable replacement. The body count suggests we were better off with the old gods. The search for new gods has been a disaster. This current search will no doubt lead to tears. Perhaps the right answer will be that we pick a form of Christianity and make it the basis of a theocracy.

This Week’s Show

Contents

00:00: Opening
02:00: Theory Of History
17:00: Cultural Marxism
37:00: The New Religion
57:00: Closing (Be Like Me)

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The Benjamin Button Times

Posted on August 19, 2021 by thezman

In The Inequality of Man, the great evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane noted that fanaticism was one of the great inventions of the pre-modern world. Obsessive enthusiasm, especially for an unattainable thing like paradise, makes the fanatic a violent force of nature. We see that with the current Afghan debacle. The open borders fanatics have immediately seized on the crisis to justify importing millions of Afghans into your neighborhood. They never miss a beat.

Similarly, the same people responsible for losing yet another war for the empire are now using the Afghan mess to demand money for their China project. The logic here is that the willingness to abandon Afghanistan, as if it was the crown jewel of the empire, means China will think the US will abandon Taiwan. They may make a play for reclaiming the island nation as a result. The remedy is to give the brain trust of the military industrial complex more money for more new stuff.

The “heads we win, tails you lose” psychology of the military industrial complex is one of those signs of rot that does not get enough attention. The truth is, Afghanistan fell victim to the same disease that afflicts everything else. It quickly became a racket for rich people to skim money from Americans. Billions went to NGO’s and civilian contractors, who then used some portion of it to reward their favorite politicians back in Washington for their support of Afghanistan.

Putting that aside, how realistic is it that China will look at this as their chance to make a move on Taiwan? The answer depends upon your view of China, rather than what is happening with the empire. The old Sinophiles still see the healthy young dragon of their youth, so they assume she will make her play sooner rather than later, because she is not getting any younger. The new Sino-skeptics see an aging dragon that has a pot-belly and smokes too much to fight anyone.

In both cases, China’s demographics are important. China’s one child policy and her sudden fertility collapse is creating a demographic disaster. The Sinophiles think this means she has to move now before it is too late, and the Sino-skeptics think it is already too late. The typical Chinese person right now is a 39-year-old man. He most likely lives in a city which means he is enjoying city life. The collapse of Chinese fertility means China is the fastest aging population in history.

You can see why the Sinophiles think China has to move now if she ever plans to move on Taiwan, but you also see why that may be impossible. That bottomless pit of young males that make good fighters is quickly drying up. Compounding it is the fact that China now has a very restless middle-class. So much so that the party is now plotting to give the billionaires a haircut in order to redistribute wealth. This is a move to shore up popular support with the middle-aged, middle class.

The worst possible thing the party could do for this demographic is launch of pointless war of choice to seize Taiwan. This would mean diverting resources from that middle-class to the war effort. It would also lead to an economic collapse, as China needs access to the Pacific to trade with the world. They also depend on the dollar and access to US markets. There is popular support for retaking Taiwan, but middle-aged support tends to be a mile wide and inch deep.

This is why the West has gone along with the kooky schemes of the radicals in charge of the institutions. Protesting the government is a young man’s game and the West is short of young men. When you are 25 with nothing to lose, you will bet your life in a better future. When you are 45 with everything to lose, you will risk very little. The is the situation in China. It is increasingly a land full of middle-aged people who don’t want to lose what they struggled so hard to acquire.

Of course, there is the military reality. Even though the US military is run by lunatics and goofballs, the war-making disparity is massive. China, for example, has two aircraft carriers that require air support from land to operate. The US has nuclear powered carriers that can attack from beyond China’s reach. Then there is the massive submarine fleet that can reach out and touch every point in China. An attack on Taiwan would be a disaster for the Chinese military.

When you start looking at the reality of current China, rather than the romantic image of 1990’s China, there is a good case that she is in decline. She went from medieval to modern in a couple of generations, which was impressive. This is why so many still see her as a marvel of central planning. The thing is though, that speed of progress is now quickly taking her past her peak deep into the modern disease. China has a bad case of “Benjamin Button” syndrome and there is no known cure for it.

That does not rule out war in the Pacific. One lesson from Afghanistan is that the military industrial complex is a massive money laundering operation. It needs low-grade wars to keep it going. In fact, the political system needs it as well. Now that the crusades against Islam have run out of steam, the war machine needs a new racket to launder the trillions. That most likely means a cold war with China that requires trillions in new toys and new experts to “keep American safe.”

Shorting Biden

Posted on August 18, 2021 by thezman

Way back when the Democratic Party stepped into to halt their voters from picking the wrong option, the immediate response from most observers was that Biden would be a caretaker president if he won. Most people, of course, assumed a man with serious cognitive decline was never going to win election, but 2020 was a good reminder that authoritarian regimes have no respect for the general will. Biden was installed as the short-term answer to their Trump problem.

How long he lasted was assumed to be a function of his ability to stand up and read the lines provided by the script writers. The “long Biden” camp said he would serve out his term, but not run for re-election. Harris or maybe someone else would be the nominee for 2024 with his blessing. The “short-Biden” camp said he would be lucky to make it to the midterm. His cognitive decline would become so obvious that he would be forced out one way or another and Harris would take over.

There was always another element to the politics that was pushed to the background in the excitement to depose Trump. The left-liberals have not been unified in a long time and the Biden-Harris ticket was a compromise between the two main factions. The one faction is the Obama side. If you look at the people around Biden in his campaign and his White House, they are mostly Obama loyalists. On the other hand, Harris was surrounded by Clinton people and remains so as VP.

The Biden-Harris ticket was not only a compromise, but a way to secure the support of the semi-permanent arm of the party, by freezing out the socialists. The apparatchiks would side with Trump before siding with Sanders. They could control Trump on the things that mattered to them. There was no telling what Sanders would do. What Biden-Harris promised to the apparatchiks was a return to the old order, so they would move heaven and earth to get them past public opposition.

Just as the exit from Afghanistan has not followed the script, the Biden-Harris compromise has not worked as hoped. Team Biden is proving to be far more radical than Washington expected. Their Carter-esque domestic agenda is reminding a lot of people of the 1970’s. Serious retail inflation is not transient after all. Instead, it is becoming a part of the public’s calculus. Retail spending has dropped this summer as people adjust to a world of rising prices for essentials.

Then you have the Covid panic which the script said was supposed to end in the summer, in time for Independence Day. They could call it the Trump plague and pretend that Biden had magically cured the nation of this affliction. It is easy to forget that Biden promised it would all be over by July. Instead, the crazies have turned it into a positional good to signal their allegiance to the new religion. This promises to set off more economic and social chaos this fall with new mandates.

The Harris side of the team has been slowly trying to pivot away from what the Biden side has been doing on a wide range of things. Note how hard they worked to keep her away from the border crisis. They see that as a disaster created by the Biden people, so they are hoping to leave that tar baby where it belongs. On the other hand, the Biden side is making sure to keep Harris from getting any positive press. They have been spreading rumors about her in the media to dirty her up.

This friction within the left-liberal wing of the political side of the party would not matter very much if not for the Afghan disaster. While normal people are happy to be free of that mess, the party is roiling over the fall out. The regime media is now full of attacks on the Biden wing. Here is a piece in the NY Times putting the blame for the collapse on the Biden people. There are stories like this all over regime media, painting a sad picture of how Team Biden let down the Afghans.

To sum up, the Afghan debacle has not only increased the tensions within the Biden-Harris coalition, but it has driven a wedge between that coalition and the apparatchiks who do most of the governing. There were leaked stories about how the Harris people were talking openly about the 25th Amendment. Even if true, they will need the support of the apparatchiks as well as congressional Democrats. They can’t just bust into the Oval Office and seize control of the state.

What this summer has shown is the “short Biden” people were probably right about how long Biden remains in office. His condition is so bad he is rarely seen. That is not going to get better. You can be sure the Clintonistas surrounding Harris are scheming with their old friends in the semi-permanent side of the party to engineer a coup to remove Biden sooner rather than later. Recall that the State Department is filled with Clinton loyalists, and they opposed the Afghan withdraw.

The question is when and how is Biden sidelined? If you wanted to give Harris the best chance at reelection, sooner is better than later. This would provide her time to consolidate her hold over the party. On the other hand, if Biden were to drop dead in office, everyone could pretend it was an outpouring of love for him that swept the left-liberals to victory in the midterms. That assumes the full support of the apparatchiks to make sure the vote goes as expected.

The Biden people are not without their options. The one important card they have is that Harris is a weird blend of stupidity and offensiveness. She had all the resources one could want in the primary and managed to drive her own popularity down to zero by simply being herself. Having a dementia patient in the White House is manageable but a bitter ingrate with a chip on her shoulder is a problem. Putting angry DMV lady in the Oval Office could turn out to be bigger disaster than Afghanistan.

Of course, the other option is to find a way to remove Harris first and replace her with someone the party can trust. Then they can pillow Biden before the midterm and run the sympathy script they have ready. This is one of those three cushion shots that makes sense until you think about the options to replace Harris. It reveals the bigger problem with the party. They have run out of people with the minimum of competence, which is how they ended up with Mumbly Joe in the White House.

Regimeology

Posted on August 17, 2021 by thezman

Back during the Cold War, there were people whose job was to figure out what was happening inside the Soviet government. Many were like F.B.I. profilers, in that they were hyped as experts, but just made up stuff to play the role. Others actually tried to read party media to figure out what was happening. These Kremlinologists were well-versed in the “Aesopian language” popular with both dissidents and party officials, so they could connect external clues to internal clues.

One of the many signs that America is authoritarian is that we have to use the same tactics to figure out what is happening with the ruling elite. The uniparty members are mostly just making noises to impress the faction leaders. They are the dancing boys of the American regime. Still, they give a sense of the mood within the factions. The media gives a sense of what is happening with party leadership, especially the semi-permanent elements within the security branches.

This is where the Afghanistan story is useful. There is no denying that it is an embarrassment to the regime. The Biden people were selling this as a smooth transition out of an untenable situation. Instead, they got images of people fleeing for their lives as the Taliban swoops in to capture the capital. The people who say optics don’t matter were once again reminded that they are missing a chromosome. Even in authoritarian regimes, optics count for a great deal, even if it just inside the party.

There is some speculation that elements within the regime were opposed to pulling out of Afghanistan and may have sabotaged the effort. There is evidence that the Pentagon and State Department were opposed, but there are no signs they plotted the collapse of the Afghan government. If they were that clever, they would have figured out how to avoid this in the first place. Instead, this is probably just more of the 4-D chess nonsense that has become popular on-line.

Instead, the media reports suggest those semi-permanent elements within the regime knew Afghanistan was a house of cards and they were prepared to pin the blame on the elected elements of the regime. CNN, of all places, is unloading on the Biden people for their incompetency. The NY Times and Washington Post are taking the neocon line and attacking Biden for leaving the “Afghan allies” to die. This open letter to the White House is like Pravda condemning Kremlin policy in the old days.

The question is why did the Biden people push forward with a policy they knew the rest of the party opposed? This is where you may have some 4-D chess, in that there may be a third man in the relationship. Clearly, the Biden people did not see this coming, so they must have been getting bogus advice from the Pentagon and State Department or at least elements within those silos. Maybe this a way to discredit the foreign policy establishment to justify sweeping changes.

This is the clue in the Biden speech. He made clear that this move was about closing the door on the past to repositioning for the future. That is coded language to mean the old Bush era foreign policy is dead or that is the plan. Coupled with the quiet abandonment of Ukraine, the old neocon obsession with their old demons will no longer be the priority of the new foreign policy. Given the infestation of neocons in regime media, this would explain the media attacks on Biden over Afghanistan.

The new foreign policy will focus on China. Little reported during all the excitement of removing Trump and installing Biden is that the Biden people have embraced the Trump China policy with few changes. They are enforcing the trade polices imposed by Robert Lighthizer during the Trump years and doing so aggressively. They are following the Trump position on the genocide in Xinjiang, which is a big deal. They have also allowed US representatives to travel to Taiwan without special permission.

The stakes could not be any higher in this intra-party conflict. The crusades against Islam have been very lucrative for the military industrial complex, both in financial opportunities as well as prestige. A trade war with China is not as sexy for them and not as remunerative. The State Department, of course, is geared to fight the old enemies so a sea change in priorities is very bad for business. For example, having old relatives in Ukraine is suddenly less important than Chinese language skills.

It is too soon to tell how this will unfold. Old regimes get loud, preachy and impervious to contrary facts. We see that with the American regime. The factions are led by fossils from a bygone era. We see the elected side on television, but the leadership of the other factions is just as ossified. They may be younger than the elected leaders, but their minds are frozen in time. No one in party leadership seems to be aware of what is happening outside the strongholds of the regime.

One possibility is that Afghanistan is treated like the party treated Khrushchev’s handling of Cuba in the 1960’s. The party was happy to treat the affair as a disaster, so they could remove him from office. We are already hearing whispers that Biden’s fragile state is the cause of the Afghan debacle. The disappearance of Harris the last few months is another clue. Taking her out of the spotlight keeps her clean and allows everyone to forget about her being an obnoxious idiot.

All we can know at this point is that the regime is very fragile right now. On the one side is a faction locked in the past and staffed by incompetents. They were the people who spent 20 years creating the new Afghanistan. On the other side is the gerontocracy desperately trying to cling to life. Then you have the new vibrant young guns who want to show off what their learned in grievance studies. There is deep tension within the American ruling regime that promises to get worse.

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