The Survival Problem

Posted on January 10, 2023 by thezman

For generations, there has been a debate outside of progressive circles about the self-awareness of the people in progressives politics. Conservatives have held onto the belief that the people spouting progressive claims know that what they are saying is nonsense, but they see advantage in supporting the current fads. This recent Paul Gottfried post is a good example. He thinks the FBI is simply making an alliance of convenience with the crazies.

Outside of conservative circles, there are those who think the people telling us their pronouns really do think their genitals are imaginary. It is not an act in order to gain some advantage, but a genuine belief. They may not entirely understand what it is they claim to belief, but they believe it, nonetheless. The woman claiming her small child is another sex may be motivated by a desire for attention, but her determination to mutilate her child is driven by belief.

We have a bit of a test case in the Brazil unrest. The crazies have hated Bolsonaro since he first turned up on the scene. At first, they hated him because he opposed the left-wing Lula da Silva. Now they hate him because he was nice to Trump, which made him Hitler Junior. Now they are comparing the recent riots to the patriotic protests following the 2020 election. They seem to think this is proof that both Trump and Bolsonaro are enemies of our democracy!

The thing is, Lula is clearly worse for the American regime than Bolsonaro. A few minutes looking at his career makes that clear. When he was in office, he was not very friendly toward America, preferring to align with China and Russia. He now promises to push ahead with BRICS, which has become a vehicle for Russia and China to counter the Global American Empire. Brazil and Russia are about to ink an important trade deal now that Lula is officially in office.

From the perspective of the American regime, Lula is a problem. Brazil is a big and important country in the Western hemisphere. They have a great deal of influence over the rest of South America. Having them move from the American camp to the Russian camp should be viewed as a catastrophe. It opens the door for both Russia and China to forge tries with other countries in America’s backyard. Despite this, the media is cheering the ascent of Lula over Bolsonaro.

Another good test case is the Russia collusion story. To normal people, the claims from the Clinton people were obvious nonsense. Strip away the heated rhetoric and what they were saying is that the Russians used some form of mind control to cause people to vote for Trump. If that were true, the Russians would have used this ability to convince the media that Trump was a great guy. The whole thing was ridiculous, but the media acted as if they believed every bit of it.

This exchange between Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald is telling. Greenwald links to a study that claims the Russians do not have a mind control device. To his credit, Greenwald has made this point for years. Taibbi, on the other hand, chimes in with the claim that the media simply got it wrong. This suggests there was a reason to think that the Russians had the mind control device. In other words, Taibbi thinks it is reasonable to think such a device exists.

Of course, the ongoing lunacy in Western media about the war in Ukraine offers a great look into this topic. Every day we see stories in Western media about how the Ukrainians are winning the war. Then there are the stories about how Russia is ready to collapse at any minute. Are the people writing these tall tales liars? Do they really believe what they are writing? Are they just vessels being filled by lairs or true believers in the content creation system?

Here is a story quoting former General Ben Hodges, who claims the Ukrainians will conquer Crimea by this summer. Then they quote someone named Matthew Schmidt, who is the director of international affairs at the University of New Haven. He claims that Hodges is a bit optimistic, but with the right strategy, the Ukrainians could maybe be in Moscow by Christmas. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but his claims are so absurd that one has to wonder if he is taking drugs.

Now, one can dismiss the guy working at a fifth tier state college as nothing more than an attention seeker. The former general is another matter. Ben Hodges was the commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe. He not only should understand the realities of war, but also be informed about what is happening. For example, he would have to know that the Ukrainian army is about to collapse in northern Donbas after a long and foolish defense of the city of Bakhmut.

If the former general lying? Does he believe what he is saying? Has he simply gone insane or taken up drug use? How about the people creating the content? Can any of them use the internet and check to see if any of these claims are true? A few minutes on-line would show them that Sevastopol is a major Russian naval base. Without a navy, Ukraine has no chance to take that port, thus making it impossible to conquer Crimea or even make an assault on it.

Like the conspiracy theories about Trump or the Russians and their mind control devices, the Ukraine war content in the media is easily disproved nonsense, but none of it is ever questioned by the media. Is this because they know it is all lies, but it serves the interests of their masters or do they believe it? Why is there no one in these media organizations asking basic questions? The unanimity in the media strongly suggests they are a hive of true believers.

This may sound academic, but it is an important question. If these people are simply craven liars, then they are open to reason. If on the other hand, they are true believers, then they are beyond reason. The former can be set straight and convinced that their interests lie in the truth. The latter can never be convinced to accept reality. A society run by true believers can only be reformed by first removing the believers. That is not a facts and reason problem. That is a survival problem.

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Andrew Tate

Posted on January 9, 2023 by thezman

Note: Behind the green door is a post about Ukraine, a post about Covid and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up at SubscribeStar or Substack.

Andrew Tate is a former professional kickboxer who transformed himself into an internet personality by mixing ghetto culture with manosphere memes. He offered courses to young males in the art of being a pickup artist. He gained widespread attention after his banning from social media platforms. He is currently in a Romanian prison awaiting trial for a number of sex crimes. Despite his predicament, he remains boastful about his abilities and what lies ahead for him.

Tate’s penchant for display items and cartoonish misogyny have not only made him famous, but it has also put the spotlight on the internet manosphere. Tate is viewed as the extreme expression of a lifestyle that is free of all cultural coercion. It is not that the pickup artist lives solely to sate his appetites. It is that he rejects all of the conventions of society with regards to how a man should live. By conventions, they always mean the highly feminized rules and the modern West.

It is more than a bit ironic that the people who have been gnawing away at conventional sex roles in order to liberate women are now up in arms over men doing the same thing, but for the purpose of liberating men. It also speaks to the feminization of Western societies that the people seeking liberation from cultural norms are young males hoping to prey on women raised on feminism. Women were liberated so that liberated males can treat them like prostitutes.

To further add to the irony, much of the modern left-wing liberation movement is about freeing nonwhites from cultural coercion. You see, according to woke theory, nonwhites can never truly be free until they eradicate white power structures. These are defined as the norms of Western society. Of course, one of those norms used to be how males should behave toward females. It looks like the woke would like to keep some of the old white power structure they claim to oppose.

That gets to the heart of the matter. Andrew Tate is not a man. He is a caricature of what it means to be a man. He is what second wave feminist called a chauvinist, a male who defines himself by minimizing women. Back in the heyday of second wave feminism, such men existed mostly in the agitated imaginations of recently divorced women, but now thanks to the miracle of the internet, they are legion. Feminism literally created what it claimed to oppose.

The reason these internet personalities specializing in the art of exploiting women have grown in number is they appeal to the young male’s natural rebelliousness. Those old white power structures used to have systems for young males to “sow their wild oats” and then settle into the normal routine of being a responsible man. Those have been wrecked by feminism. It turns out that there is little point in being a responsible man when the women are not good at being women.

In fairness, feminism would never have gone anywhere if ruling class males had done their duty and maintained the old ways. The bourgeois society that arose in the 20th century, especially in America, brought bourgeois degeneracy with it. Over the course of the 20th century, America and then the West has come to be defined by the coffee house radical seeking new ways to stand out from tradition and custom. Feminism and the pickup artist are two manifestations of this process.

Interestingly, both Andrew Tate and his woke feminist critics are right. From his perspective, the hedonistic lifestyle built around the exploitation of liberated women is completely rational. If modern society has no rewards for playing the traditional male role, if in fact it punishes those who play that role, then logic says the male should reject that role and seek profit where he can find it. Biologically that means getting as much high status stuff and as many females as possible.

The woke feminists are also correct in pointing out that males living outside the feminist cultural norms are a direct threat to their existence. Modern bourgeois society depends upon males playing the traditional roles in key areas, while the ruling class free rides off of their efforts. It is a parasitic relationship that can only work if the males among the Dirt People play along with it. The lifestyle of Andrew Tate threatens the balance between the host and the parasite.

Of course, no society can survive if the males are like Andrew Tate and the females are like his woke feminist critics. To be a man is to be trusted by other men to keep safe that which is important to men. Andrew Tate cannot be trusted around your women or your belongings, so he is not a man. In a crisis, the first thing that happens is the men in charge kill the guys like Andrew Tate. It is addition by subtraction. Not having to worry about him leaves time for important matters.

Similarly, the woke feminists will disappear in a crisis. In fact, all forms of feminism will disappear as soon as things get serious again. For starters, the men in charge will have no patience for it. Like Andrew Tate, some nag complaining about the unfairness of biology is an unnecessary distraction. The responsible females will quickly move in to put a muzzle on these women. When the crisis comes, look for mobs of middle-aged mothers reviving the ducking stool.

In the end, Andrew Tate and his woke feminist antagonists are both products of the carny morality that springs from bourgeois society. Free to indulge in their worst instincts, a bourgeois ruling class will do their worst and then seek to normalize it among the people over whom the rule. Like the people who live the life of excess, a society ruled this way ends in physical and mental despair. Like the man of excess, a society of excess eventually needs an intervention.

Random News Items

Posted on January 6, 2023 by thezman

I had to record the show on Wednesday evening as I had things to do on Thursday, so I was left to guess about the Kevin McCarthy drama. My guess from the start was that this would go on for as long the sides had breath in their lungs, because it has nothing to do with issues and everything to do with personality. Those opposed to McCarthy simply detest the man for who he is and that is not changing.

What is remarkable about this is how willing the rest of the party is to tell their voters how much they detest them. By supporting this bozo, they are giving the finger to their voters in the most obvious way. The angry one-eyed dwarf calling the holdouts “terrorists” is why people are sick of the Republican Party. The party of John McCain is the main reason for the present crisis.

This has been an unexpected boost to our side to start the year. The goofballs in conservative media have taken this opportunity to remind everyone that they are just as loathsome as the party they support. Here we have some of the Fox News actors calling the hold outs insurrectionists. Then they had Anthony Weiner’s best bud attack Lauren Boebert in a live interview. Hilarious.

The best part about this is the party has an easy way out of this jam. They could dump McCarthy and find someone that is not hated, but instead they are rallying around the establishment flag. Even better is that whatever deal they eventually cut with the holdouts will be immediately broken. The party of finks will figure out a way to fink on themselves in the finkiest way possible.

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This Week’s Show

Contents

The McCarthy Drama
Marco Rubio (Link)
Same Old Stuff (Link)
The Shape Shifter (Link)
Jordan Peterson (Link)
Where Is Everyone? (Link)
Racism Castle (Link)
The Deadly Jab (Link)
Vegan Headphones (Link)

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

What Is National Conservatism?

Posted on January 5, 2023 by thezman

National conservatism, a movement created by Israeli Zionist Yoram Hazony, has gained some degree of respectability over the last decade. People associated with the movement have been given space on mainstream platforms. His conferences get a large crowd of academic types, most of whom get a speaking role. The event is one part academic conference, one part networking event. Of course, it is all made possible by billionaire Peter Theil who underwrites it.

Therein lies the first puzzle. Look at the collection of people associated with the movement and it is hard to find common ground. Peter Theil calls himself a libertarian, but he supported Trump. Granted, the space between Trump’s 1980’s civic nationalism and libertarianism is not that great, but most libertarians threw their dresses over their heads and went squealing into the night when Trump arrived. They joined their friends on the Left in calling him a fascist.

It gets fuzzier when you see paleos like Paul Gottfried and Daniel McCarthy, along with varieties of the “new right” like Michael Anton and Josh Hammer. The only thing these people have in common is support for Trump. Otherwise, they do not have much in common with one another, at least on the surface. Then you have people like Rod Dreher and David Goldman speaking at these events. Hazony’s events are the bar in Star Wars for dispossessed right-wing intellectuals.

Things get more muddled when you look at where some of these people come down on the key issues of the day. Here is John O’Sullivan giving a speech about Ukraine at the most recent conference. He clearly knows nothing about the Ukraine or the war, but he is happy to defend the Global American Empire’s meddling. Here is someone writing the “national conservative case” for arming Ukraine. He thinks war with Russia will help in the war with China to come.

Those two are not outliers. Here is Yoram Hazony making the rather farfetched claim that Ukraine was just minding its own business when for no reason at all Russia decided to invade them. If one were to take Hazony’s book, The Virtue of Nationalism, at face value, you would expect him to take the opposite position. After all, Hazony’s book is an argument against empire and it is the Global American Empire that is the cause of the war in Ukraine.

Of course, no one can read Hazony’s book and not see that it is mostly a way to give Europeans the language to defend Zionism. The prevailing ideology of Western elites is explicitly anti-nationalist. An ethnostate like Israel falls far outside of what Western elites consider acceptable, so you can see the problem. Israel ethnically cleansing the West Bank does not fit the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion pogrom. The Hazony project is mostly a way to square that circle to Western conservatives.

As an aside, Hazony makes the claim in his book that a people have a right to a homeland if they have the ability to keep and maintain it. He makes this qualification for two obvious reasons. First, it sets a size limit for a nation. Otherwise, three people could get together and demand independence. The other reason is it allows for the easy dismissal of Arab claims in Israel. The Palestinians have no claims because they cannot keep their own lands.

The fact that this argument is best applied to Israel is never addressed. After all, Israel would not exist without the British then the Americans. The entirety of Israeli foreign policy for over half a century has been to use any means necessary to gain favor with great powers in order to fend off the Arabs. Israel is the product of empire. Now that the Global American Empire is looking weak, Israel is now cutting the Ukrainians loose in favor of the Russians.

Putting that aside, the question remains, what is national conservatism? At this point, the best answer is that it is a holding area for people not welcome at reputable events who never want to be associated with disreputable events. For example, Jason Richwine is welcome at a Hazony event, but at that same event Hazony will rage against “race science” like a grievance studies major. Mark Krikorian is welcome, but anyone associated with VDare is banned.

The result is that national conservatism is sort of island of misfit toys. The only thing holding them together is a desire to get a seat at the table. Thiel’s money lets them put on extravagant conferences at world class facilities, which draw in famous people looking for some street cred as an outsider. For example, Marco Rubio, a product of Conservative Inc., gave a speech at Hazony’s event and now talks about himself as an implacable foe of the Washington political establishment.

Otherwise, national conservatism is a term without meaning. The nationalism expressed by people like Hazony is situational. Israel can build settlements in Arab areas because it is in their national interest. Russia, meanwhile, is guilty of imperialism when she moves to defend ethnic Russians from Ukrainian fanatics underwritten by the Global American Empire. This sounds like the same old neoconservatism that has plagued us since the middle of the last century.

As for the conservatism, there is not much agreement. Hazony claims that American conservatism is rooted in Burke. The umbrella group that sponsors his activity is called the Edmund Burke Foundation. On the other hand, the Claremont people that freely circulate in these events reject that claim. They are Lockeans, at least with regards to the American founding. Others are social conservatives rooting their moral claims in the authority of their religion.

There is nothing wrong with heterodoxy. In fact, more events where disparate people can socialize and debate is a good thing. As a movement, however, there has to be something more than Peter Theil’s money and estrangement from the cool kid’s table of the prevailing orthodoxy. Without a common goal or even a common narrative, it is just a collection of outsiders desperate to get back in, terrified of the ominous sounds coming from the darkness to their right.

Friends & Enemies

Posted on January 4, 2023 by thezman

One of the truths of democratic politics is that enemies tend to be forever, while friends tend to be temporary. The reason is politics is personal. When someone does something to harm you in politics, you take it personally. You remember it long after the harm has been forgotten. When someone does you a favor, in contrast, it tends to be transactional, as the person doing the favor is acting from self-interest. Favors are impersonal, while harms are always personal.

This is something Kevin McCarthy is learning right now. His climb to the speaker’s chair has been sidetracked by a small group of malcontents. They oppose him becoming the next Speaker of the House because they do not like him. More important, they think he is a shameless liar, so they do not trust him. The reason they think this is that Kevin McCarthy is a shameless liar. To get where he is he had to knife people in the back, because he has no other qualifications for the job.

It will never be said publicly, but his role in knifing Congressman Steve King in the back, at the behest of the donor class, burned up his capital. If he is willing to work with the New York Times to ruin a Steve King, how can anyone in the caucus be sure he will not do the same trick to them? Politics is a sleazy business, but the reason to be in a party is to have the protection of the party. McCarthy broke an important rule so he is a man with few friends, only money to spread around.

Another truth of politics is that when you take a shot at the king you better not miss, which is where the anti-McCarthy forces are right now. They have to hang together or they will hang alone. Just in case that is not clear, the self-aggrandizing sociopath from Texas, Dan Crenshaw, gave one of his typical tantrums to the press, calling the holdouts forever enemies of the uniparty. In Hell right now, Stalin is slapping John McCain on the back why saying, “That’s your boy!”

The unspoken truth of this fiasco is that this would not be possible if the FBI had allowed the Republicans to sweep the midterms. If it had been a red wave, McCarthy would have had no trouble getting the votes from all of those newly minted House members excited to be in Washington. Instead, the FBI only allowed the GOP to gain a small majority to keep up appearances. That gives this small band of holdouts the chance to throw a wrench in the works of the uniparty.

This brings up the question that no one in the media dares ask. That is, why is it just fifteen members of the party opposing this oleaginous snake? For a long time, we have been told that most of the party is conservative, but the leadership is the problem, always cutting deals with the Democrats. If the conservatives could get control of the leadership, then things would change. It turns out that conservatives are as rare as hen’s teeth in the Republican Party.

The truth is, George Washington was right. No man is so virtuous as to resist the highest bidder and that is axiomatically true in politics. Marjorie Taylor Greene switched teams for the promise of some legitimacy. The party promised to let he pretend to be a serious person in exchange for her support of the uniparty. It turns out that those stories about old Marge being a cheap date were true. It is a good reminder that character is your best guide, even in the sleazy world of politics.

Of course, this whole affair is shining light on a truth about our politics. Democracy is just a show to conceal the real power in society. The holdouts know that they will get nothing from this, even if McCarthy steps aside. The guy who takes his place will be dancing the tune the donors call. Again, for the holdouts, this is not really about principle. They just hate Kevin McCarthy so they are taking their shot. In the end they know the Speaker will be a puppet of the donors.

This affair also suggests that the donors and their puppets in the two parties are tiring of the game of make believe. Once it was clear that the people are too docile to push back against things like lockdowns and mask wearing, no one in charge had any reason to worry about fooling the people with the democracy show. They can have this embarrassing food fight in public, because who cares about the public? Certainly, no one in either party or the pirates that control them.

It is why the right way to view it is as just another carny act on the stage that is liberal democratic politics. It is all sound and fury signifying nothing, but there is no harm in enjoying the suffering of the people made to perform on the stage. Given the age in which we live, expect the holdouts to be bought off or threatened by the FBI and this whole thing comes to end today. McCarthy is human filth, but he does what he is told, so the donors will probably save him.

Even so, there is a lesson for dissidents. Politics is always about friends and enemies, not abstract ideas. The goal is to increase your pool of friends, while limiting the pool of enemies you create in the process. Politics is always personal. Those who go out of their way to create drama and stir up conflict are always bad for your politics, so the best course is to avoid those people. You may not always be able to count on your friends, but you can always count on your enemies.

Willing Accomplices

Posted on January 3, 2023 by thezman

If one were looking for a reason for why the conservative movement failed so completely you would be spoiled for choice. Most people would point to the fact that despite having billions of dollars and majority support on key issues, conservatives managed to conserve nothing. Others would point out that many of the people claiming to be conservative were more concerned with maintaining good relations with their friends on the Left than advancing conservative policy.

Often this is where you hear some form of the Hoffer quote about great causes becoming religions, corporations or rackets. It is a great observations and certainly true, especially with regards to the conservative movement. Any system that produces a sanctimonious simpleton like David French has long since stopped being a serious political movement. Most of conservatism is a racket, while the rest is just a jobs program for philosophy majors.

While true, these are symptoms rather than causes. The real cause of conservative failure was the race issue. Once they conceded the moral high ground to the Left over the issue of race, the Right was forced to embrace the blank slate and egalitarianism in order to make any sense of it. You cannot agree that unequal results are immoral if you also claim that Mother Nature does not distribute her gifts equally. You have deny nature in order to embrace the moral claim.

Once conservatives accepted the starting premise of the Left, they condemned themselves to forever embracing the Left’s conclusions. You can see this in the fight of the antiwhite pogroms called CRT and DEI. This recent National Review post claims that conservatives can win the race debate. That sounds good until you read the actual text of the post and see that the secret formula for winning is another version of the internet meme, “the conservative case for…”

Here are the key lines. “We must see racial disparities where they exist and acknowledge racial trauma as real, because for many Americans, it is real. Responding to the trauma of racial discrimination by simply expressing a commitment to a race-neutral ideal is a bad move.” In other words, the so-called conservatives have to accept the premise of the Left. They see winning as proving to their masters on the Left that they are properly trained on the issue of race.

Now, the author of the piece is an interesting character. We can be sure that his ancestors did not arrive on the Mayflower. He is an example of what conservatives tell us is the new model American. His people arrived recently and as if by magic they are not only as American as everyone else, but they now have a duty to criticize the errors of your ancestors and explain how you can make things right. South Asians have embraced the skins game with a passion.

There is another name for this. Isaac Willour is a fine example of the Ingrate-American, a new arrival who does nothing but lecture white people for not having done enough to make his stay comfortable. White Americans could be forgiven for wondering why in the hell they need to listen to this interloper about anything. Maybe instead of lecturing us about our ancestors, he should be thanking us for a life that the civilization of his ancestors could never provide to him.

Putting that aside, once you concede that racial disparities require your attention and that they are the fault of white people, you sign onto whatever pogroms the Left launches on white people. There can be no salvation for white people until those disparities are gone, but since that is an impossibility, the only choice left is a forever war on whiteness, which is a war on white people. This is the logical end of the conservative embrace of the blank slate.

One you concede that people are amorphous blobs that can be made into anything, the cause of observable disparity shifts from the individual to society. Once you buy into the idea that all men are created equal, you concede that any observed inequality must be the result of some malevolent force in society. Once conservatives signed onto these two concepts, they committed themselves to a war on the majority population in the name of equality, equity and justice.

This is how conservatives went from Bill Buckley arguing with James Baldwin over the issue of civil rights to a world where recent arrivals lecture the white population about the crimes of their ancestors. After all, if all you have is the claim that all men are created equal, endowed with natural rights, what argument can you have against some guy getting off his flying carpet and claiming to be your equal? As your equal, does he not have the right to judge you and your ancestors?

Of course, this degenerate thinking pollutes everything. After all, how can one oppose open borders when you owe such a huge debt to the world? How can one question the economic arrangements when the world is counting on your sacrifice? How can you oppose community wrecking policies when you wanting to live a peaceful life among people like yourself is clearly white supremacy? Once the blood libel gets going, it becomes the universal weapon.

This is why conservatism has been a failure in America. Once they signed off on the blank slate and egalitarianism, they had no way to dispute any of the claims made by the Left, so they were reduced to being their unwilling accomplices. Eventually, their masters lost patience and now conservatives compete with one another to see who can be the most enthusiastic for the latest progressive fad. Conservatism is a shadow that cheers as the Left flits from one cause to the next.

What If They Believe It?

Posted on January 2, 2023 by thezman

One of the questions no one in the media plans to ask is why the FBI was so deeply involved in the Twitter disinformation campaigns? The word “disinformation” is the correct word in this case. Twitter was actively trying to provide the public with false information about a wide range of issues. One tool they used was silencing those who contradicted official narratives. They would instruct the Twitter censorship team to take down posts and ban particular users.

Presumably, the FBI was not just involved with Twitter, but with all of the big social media companies. Of course, this was just part of what the FBI has been doing to undermine the normal functioning of society. Victor Davis Hanson took a stab at cataloging some of their activity. He does not get into their plots to entrap people in various capers like the Gretchen Whitmer case. Then there is their involvement in the January 6 protests at the Capitol.

This is a massive effort, but to what end? Paul Gottfried suggests the primary motivation is power politics. “I’m still trying to figure out where the close alliance between surveillance agencies and the woke Left, which has been evident since at least the Obama Administration, may lead. I have no doubt this friendship is based more on power considerations than ideological affinity.” The assumption here is that the FBI does not really believe the crazy things they are saying.

Gottfried’s position is the standard conservative position that has been the default for more than half a century when dealing with the Left. Conservatives assume that there is no way these people believe what they are saying. Instead, they are motivated by a more sensible reason like money or power. Conservatives tend to be practical people, so they assume people are motivated by practical reasons. They cannot accept that these people genuinely believe what they are saying.

What if the FBI is as woke as it appears? What if the people at the top of the military, the people pushing the DIE agenda throughout the ranks, really are as antiwhite and generally insane as they sound? Talk to anyone in the services and they will tell you that the officer corps makes corporate America look old fashioned. Every FBI agent is sent to the ADL for brainwashing, so the selection pressure strongly favors the sorts of people who believe in the woke conspiracy theories.

It is entirely possible that these organizations, in fact the entirety of the managerial class, has been taken over by true believers. This does not mean all of them believe this stuff, just that there is a critical mass of believers. The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, is as close as we have to an axiom in this area. Across all human organizations we see that there is a “vita few” that exert an extraordinary amount of influence over the whole.

What if the managerial class, having become self-aware at the end of the Cold War, has simply landed on what we call wokeness as its binding agent? What if adherence to one of these illogical and unnatural fads is simply the way people inside signal their status and commitment to others? Many, if not most, do not honestly believe this stuff, but as social animals they do what they believe is necessary to be in the group and enhance their status opportunities in the group.

In other words, the conservatives are right in that there are plenty of people cynically playing along, but know this stuff is insane. They do it for all the reasons ambitious people do things. They want to increase their status. The wrinkle here is they operate from the assumption that everyone else does believe this stuff, or at least enough important people believe it that it is best to play along. Even though a majority of the members do not believe, the whole acts as if they do believe.

What this suggests is that even if the conservatives are right and most people in the managerial class do not believe this woke lunacy, they act as if they do because they believe their fellows do believe it. That means no amount of facts and reason could change their minds, because they assume that everyone around them is genuinely woke on the latest things. In fact, knowing the truth, so to speak, makes life more dangerous for them in their social milieu.

This would explain the fanaticism of these people. If they were cocksure of their beliefs, they would have little reason to proselytize. The obviousness of their claims would be enough, so there would be no need for enforcement. On the other hand, if these people are riddled with doubt, but sure most around them are true believers, then stamping out all contrary opinion and the people who present those contrary opinions is the most rational way of defending themselves within the group.

The “group belief” option seems to comport with observation. The people policing the borders for dissent always frame their actions in terms of self-defense. The Twitter censors were “protecting” fellow believers from “misinformation” and “stochastic violence” on the platform. When what others think you believe determines membership in the whole, it is not a big leap from there to believing that anything that causes doubt or questions belief is a threat to your existence.

The other thing the group belief option does is explain how easily these people flit from one set of beliefs to another. The people bellowing “my body, my choice!” quickly shifted to bellowing “take the vax bigot” during Covid. Not only did they not see the irrationality of both positions, but they were blind to the contradictions. The reason is the content in these slogans is not what matters. In fact, it is meaningless. What matters is what the slogans signal to the person’s social environment.

This approach answers the “woke buddy” question. Everyone has at least one person in their life who is smart and capable, but he subscribes to the latest madness from the cult of modern liberalism. You can explain it to him and he will nod a long, but then go right back to spouting the latest madness. The answer is that these noises are just group identification. Like a cult member facing deprogramming, he says what he must to break free, but remains in the mental space of the cult.

Finally, the irrationality of the beliefs probably enhances the group solidary aspect of the whole wokeness agenda. Because it makes no sense on its face, one must be initiated into the concepts. Once inside, the member comes to feel like a member of a clerisy or possibly an elect or even a chosen few. It would be interesting to see a demographic study on the woke population. It would explain the overrepresentation of certain groups in this secular cult that now dominates the ruling class.

Getting back to the beginning, the reason the FBI and other institutions are bending the knee to this new religion is the people running these organizations either believe this stuff or want to believe it for social reasons. Even if the true believers are just twenty percent, they have become the standard against which members are judged. That means your facts and logic are, at best, pointless noise to them. At worse, reason is viewed as a grave personal threat.

This may be why conservatives are loathe to consider the possibility that these people really believe this stuff. If that becomes clear, then the conservatives with the charts and graphs lose their value. If the group belief option is true, then conservatism is a dangerous liability to society. The rational thing for normal people is to snuff out the remaining conservatives and then set about plotting in secret for when the ruling class can be physically removed.

Happy New Year 2023!

Posted on January 1, 2023 by thezman

It is a new year and it is important to start with a clean slate, so this is an unscheduled show to clear out the mail bag. That way I can close out 2022 without any unfinished business and start the new year without a hangover from the prior year. I also felt guilty about letting the mail bag linger and not acknowledging the people who sent gifts to me since the last time I did one of these shows.

The intro to the show is Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians. When I was a kid he was on television ringing in the new year. His version of “Auld Lang Syne” was the only version as far as anyone knew. Out of curiosity I looked around to see if anyone had tried to do an updated version of it. The results were not good. Allegedly this Mariah Carey version is considered the best new version. It is terrible.

There are some songs that should never be sung by anyone but the person who made the song famous. The Sid Vicious version of “My Way” is amusing and it has meaning in terms of music history, but it is terrible otherwise. The only version worth hearing is the Sinatra version. A modern singer performing the song is suggesting she belongs on the same stage as Sinatra.

My guess is they have trashed up the New Year’s eve shows to the point where only a degenerate can tolerate them. I have not stayed up to watch any of them in decades, so I am left to guess. I think the last time I made it to midnight on the big night was in the 1980’s, but I no longer remember. My tradition is to be asleep before the clock strikes midnight so I can get an early start on the year.

Happy New Year!

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The 2023 Predictions

Posted on December 30, 2022 by thezman

Predictions for the new year are a tradition in the content creation world, but it seems like the tradition is fading. The obvious reason is the zombies in the mass media are no longer capable of independent thought. If your job is to repeat what you are told, making predictions is a very dangerous game. That and you run the risk of accidentally noticing something that is forbidden. Predictions are about trends and noticing those is a high crime these days, so predictions are frowned upon.

The other reason this tradition is fading is America is no longer an optimistic society, so making predictions is a bit grim. Predicting that Americans will reach Mars in the next decade is fun and exciting. Predicting that the economy will continue to crumble due to mass piracy by the ruling class is depressing. Even for those on this side of the divide, looking into the abyss is not a lot of fun. That said, it is a tradition and traditions must be maintained even in the worst of times.

With that in mind, let us get right into it. The economy in Europe will continue to crumble in 2023, with energy concerns reaching critical mass. They stocked up on Russian gas to make it through this winter, but that stock is gone and the replacement will be significantly more expensive going forward. The goofy oil price cap will begin to warp the market, driving prices up in Europe, but down in Asia. This will accelerate the de-industrialization of Europe creating an economic panic by the autumn.

In the U.S., inflation will remain stubbornly high, especially as de-dollarization of the energy markets picks up steam. The Fed will have no choice but to shift from the Arthur Burns strategy to the Paul Volker strategy. Higher energy costs and China’s aggressive currency policies will force the Fed to remove dollars from the system in a far more aggressive fashion than in 2022. Mortgage rates will break the nine percent barrier in the fall as the economy dips into recession…

Cozy TV gets de-platformed from the internet…

On the political front, the prosecutor assigned to investigate Trump hits him with some spurious charges, in order to keep Trump viable. The regime thinks he is their best bet at avoiding a change in figure head. The charges will lack seriousness, thus turning Trump into a martyr for the base. Meanwhile, the Republican leadership rallies around Tim Scott as their anti-Trump option. They think their voters will abandon Trump if the option is a magical black man.

As the economy gets worse, the rumblings about a primary challenge to Biden will grow louder, especially as things in Ukraine fall apart. All of the pundits will swear that Biden will choose to step aside, but instead he will announce that he intends to run for another term, even though he has no idea where he is most of the time. At this point, even the dumbest Democratic voter will start to realize that our elections are just theater and they have no bearing on public policy…

Kanye West files for bankruptcy…

The crypto market will continue to erode as it becomes clear that the novelty has passed and there will not be another rally. The fact is the only use of crypto is to get around government policy. It is simply a way to make real money disappear and then reappear somewhere else without the government knowing about it. Bitcoin will drop below $10,000 by the summer and there will be talk about the entire space returning to its roots as a tool of the underground economy…

I will finish my book…

By the late spring, it becomes clear that the Ukrainian army cannot continue and the West has run out of weapons for them. This will force the Ukrainian army to withdraw from the Donbass. Simultaneously, NATO sends “advisers” into Western Ukraine, under the pretext of stemming the flow of refugees into the rest of Europe. These “advisors” will be mostly Polish military. By autumn, the Poles will be talking about annexing Ukrainian lands that were once part of Poland.

This triggers a crisis in Europe as it will open a long suppressed discussion about the borders drawn after WW2. The Germans will start talking about lands they lost to Poland after the war. The Hungarians will make their own claims in Ukraine. Romania will make is claims on Moldova/Transnistria. Meanwhile, the Balkans will get hot as all of the old claims come to a boil. Meanwhile, the Russians will turn their newly acquired territories into a heavily fortified buffer between West and East.

All of this calls into question the trillions spent on the Military Industrial Complex over the last thirty years. People start to notice that the weapons industry has been charging billions for machines that are largely useless against an opponent that can fight back and impossible to produce in the volumes required of a real conflict. The failure in Ukraine will expose the fact that the American military machine is just another grift in a society based on the greater fool theory…

Musk turns Twitter back over to the censors and moves onto some new hobby…

Joe Biden gives a speech in favor of human sacrifice. This sounds ridiculous, but the coordinated effort by the managerial elite in favor of the mutilation of children is one small step from ritual human sacrifice. Canada is telling people to kill themselves, so that will be in America soon. Put the two together and you can see how turning euthanasia into a new right is the logical end. Given how the ruling class sacralizes their fetishes, logic says they will be promoting human sacrifice soon…

The Alex Jones case runs into an “enterprising” judge who will craft a novel way around the legal protections Jones plans to use to guard his assets. The judge will find a way for the plaintiffs to do a Tom Metzger on Jones, stripping him of all of his assets and the commercial rights to his own name. The Alex Jones show will become the property of the skeevy weirdos suing him. Jones will be made penniless and no one in the mainstream media will question it.

Meanwhile Sam Bankman-Fried will get time served and a small fine for his role in the FTX scheme. This may sound crazy, but our legal system is this corrupt. He and the rest of the perverts that ran the operation will be given a free pass, as long as they keep their mouths shut about who they bribed and for what purpose. Unlike Bernie Madoff, who robbed important people, Bankman mostly robbed Dirt People, so the important people will give him and his friends a pass…

The Oracle of Lagos will become the Oracle of Appalachia…

Happy New Year!

2022 In Review

Posted on December 29, 2022 by thezman

Note: For those looking for a direct response to Michael Anton’s unprovoked attack on me can find it behind it behind the green door. I posted it there as having a sub should have value beyond extra content. You can sign up at SubscribeStar or Substack.

The one sure way to look like a genius when making predictions is to say the upcoming year will make the closing year look relatively calm. The reason is that recency bias works in favor of such a prediction. Everyone thinks now is crazier than the past, because they mostly forgot about how they felt in the past. The other reason it works in this age is things are getting increasingly weird.

That is one I can put in the win column. The theme to last year’s predictions was that things would get crazier and that is objectively true. While I did not specifically call Kanye West becoming America’s leading white nationalist, the mere fact that it happened confirms that we have reached a new level of crazy. We do not live in interesting times. We live in an age of general lunacy.

This cuts both ways. In an age of lunacy, you feel free to make bold improbable predictions about what comes next, because why not? My call on Biden was crazy but having a dementia patient in the White House is crazier still. Why not have a palace coup to remove him and the DMV lady? That turned out to be all wrong as Biden and DMV lady seem to be permanent fixtures now.

I got the international scene wrong as well, mostly because I did not go anywhere near bold enough in my predictions. I always underestimate the lunacy of the neocons, mostly because normal people never fully grasp evil. It turns out to have been a wackier year internationally than I thought was possible. In this regard, 2022 will be remembered as a momentous year for the world.

I also got the midterms wrong, at least partially wrong. I thought I was going out on a limb with that one, but it turned out to be too cautious. I thought demographics and disgust would begin to catch up with the Republicans, but not as quickly as it seems to be happening. Turnout took a hit in 2022 compared to previous midterms and it was almost all on the Republican side of things.

With regards to elections, 2022 may go down as the year when people internalized the wholesale corruption in the system. Among normal people it is now assumed that our elections are rigged. Some take it too far and there are the grifters like Dinesh D’Souza trying to monetize the cynicism, but most normal people now accept that our elections are no longer on the level. That is not a small thing.

Probably the biggest miss for the year was my predictions for myself. I did not escape Lagos and I did not finish my book. It was a year of big changes and those changes threw a wrench in my plans. When you have a tight schedule, change almost always means a deleterious disruption in the work schedule. My early prediction for next year is that I will remain behind on everything.

On the positive side of things, I did get the economics right. I hit the Bitcoin and equities markets calls pretty much on the nose, so to speak. I said Bitcoin would lose 50% of its value and it lost a bit more than that over the year. I was a little aggressive on the stock market, but that was due to de-dollarization globally. Those dollars have to go somewhere so they went into stocks late in the year.

Probably the best call of the year was the continued decline of Conservative Inc. and its media organs. This is something not getting a ton of attention, but official conservatism is on its way to the dustbin of history. When Claremont grandees are referencing dissident writers, you know that behind the scenes there is a great deal of handwringing about what is happening among the Dirt People.

The same can be said for the media as a whole. It is looking like Donald Trump was to the media what the compact disc was for music. People repurchased their music inventory on the new format, which masked the real decline in the market. The same was true of Trump. People paid attention to the media because he was at war with the media, but now that he is gone, interest in mass media has collapsed.

Every year, the biggest misses in the prediction game are the things that happened which no one imagined happening. No one saw Ukraine becoming a global struggle to keep the American empire alive well past its expiry date. Some predicted war in Ukraine and some even thought it would carry on for a while, but no one saw the great proxy war for the survival of the American empire as a result.

Similarly, no one saw the Twitter fiasco coming. Even now, no one is noting the elite war on Elon Musk for his apostacy. They have been attacking the value of his companies in an effort to punish him for his Twitter takeover. Of course, no one thought that an advocate for child molestation would turn out to be their chief censor. No one thought the FBI was integrated into Twitter either.

That may be the biggest miss of 2022. Most American have now learned that there is a secret police in America and they spend most of their time spying on Americans and manipulating what they see and hear. When establishment figures like Victor Davis Hanson are shocked by what has been revealed about the FBI, you know we have turned some important corner in the life of the country.

In the end, it was a strange year. Maybe it will be viewed as a pivotal year or simply part of a pivotal moment that started in 2015 when Trump came down the escalator. The one thing we can be sure about is 2023 will be even stranger than 2022. The trick is in imagining something that seems impossible today, and then think about how it could become normalized by this time next year.

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