The Praetorians

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The video of former president Obama visiting the White House recently made clear that the current president is not really in charge. Joe Biden was seen staggering around the reception looking for anyone to acknowledge him. It was possible he had no idea where he was at the time. Biden’s increasingly deranged public rantings suggest he is reaching his expiry date. The question being quietly debated in Washington is when and how he will be removed from office.

The fact that this question has been normalized since before he was installed in the position speaks to how much things have changed in America. No one really thinks Joe Biden is in charge of himself or the executive branch. It is just assumed that he is a place holder who will be replaced in his first term. Every president represents a coalition of elite interests, but none have been viewed as a figurehead. This is a big change that in time will be seen as an inflection point.

There is plenty of speculation about the when and the how the real decision makers will remove Biden from office. Maybe they have a Lee Harvey Oswald in training, one of those Trump loving white supremacist from their mythologies. That would justify another round of state sponsored terrorism. Maybe they just force him out due to poor health in the hope of making him a sympathetic figure. Of course, who replaces him is another fun question to ponder.

That is all fun stuff to debate, but the question no one bothers to consider is who is making the decision on Biden? No one has provided a clear explanation for who picked him back in the primary. It was clearly not the voters. The party forced everyone to quit after the South Carolina primary, but how did that work? If it was just the party why did they wait so long? The timing suggests someone came to the aid of the party with new tools.

We got a hint of who is really calling the shots recently. The government of Pakistan has not been enthusiastic for the sanctions regime against Russia. Last week, some powerful Pakistani generals suddenly backed a no-confidence vote for prime minister Imran Khan in the parliament. Khan was wily enough to see it coming so he dissolved parliament before the vote and called for new elections. People who know Pakistan suggest he will win that vote and remain in power.

Everyone assumes the reason the Pakistani generals tried to topple Khan is they got word from America that it would be good for business. Aligning with America against Russia would mean new bribes and equipment. That promise could only come from the American military. There is little interface between the American political class and the Pakistani political class. There are close relations between the respective military and intel agents of both countries.

We only have to go back a couple of years to the color revolution against Trump to see the same finger prints. The lead in that caper was the intelligence community, but we learned that the top brass of the military was in the loop. General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said this. The FBI, CIA and Senate Intelligence Committee were at the center of the Russian collusion hoax and spying operation against the Trump campaign.

Currently, it is a handful of neoconservatives in the foreign policy elite who are running the war against Russia. None of the decisions thus far have involved anyone outside that narrow group. It seems rather clear that no one bothered to consult the financial class about the sanctions regime. No one in Congress has been in the loop or has bothered to ask any questions about it. The lack of debate or dissent is an important clue.

Another unnoticed clue is the highly coordinated mass media campaigns that have become a staple of American life. After George Floyd’s overdose, we were deluged from every corner with antiwhite propaganda. The content providers had a BLM campaign ready to go and the rioters were organized and ready. We have just witnessed the same coordinated media campaign on behalf of Ukraine. Where did the TV presenters get those Ukraine lapel pins?

Operation Mockingbird was a CIA program early in the Cold War to manipulate the media. Half a century ago, the far-left activist Carl Bernstein wrote a long article on the collusion between the CIA and the mass media. Today the mass media is full of “retired” intelligence officers working as pundits. The point is that the secret police infiltrated the media long ago and continue to run it. The fifty intel agents who swore Biden’s laptop was fake agree with this.

Like the Q source that Bible scholars think is a written collection of primarily Jesus’ sayings, the people in charge remain a mystery. We can know they exist from the clues we can see. The common elements that exist in these various events suggest a common set of hands. Those hands come from the wilderness of mirrors that is the intelligence community. This community is like a miasma that permeates all of the ruling class institutions.

It is tempting reduce this to a handful of shadowy players who operate from a hidden lair, but in reality it is probably a collection of people. It is called the intelligence community because it is mostly an informal collection of people and institutions that come together for a common purpose. The change we have seen recently is that it is the intel community calling the shots, rather than the semi-permanent political elite using the intel community to remain in power.

In the fullness of time, the Biden period will be seen as the time when this shadowy group of figures became the Praetorian Guard. They moved from keeping the elites in power to picking the elites who will hold office. That arrangement was a disaster for the Roman Empire and given the situation with Biden, this arrangement is looking like a disaster for the Global American Empire. That said, there is no sign of a Constantine out there, so this is the new normal.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

World War III

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The war that the Global American Empire has launched against Russia is just the beginning of a global war it believes will bring about the end times. That sounds extreme but the top foreign policy people of the regime are quietly talking about regime change in both Moscow and Beijing. The main focus right now is Moscow, but they also have Beijing in their crosshairs and maybe even New Delhi. They believe the war is the final phase of the end of history.

This sounds insane given that Russia has more than enough nuclear weapons to reduce the empire to dust. Despite this reality, the people in charge of the empire have the current figurehead demanding Putin be arrested for war crimes. This is a new reality that needs to be acknowledged. Joe Biden is not in charge of anything. That was made clear when Barak Obama visited the White House recently. Biden was completely ignored by everyone, including Obama.

Putting that aside, the Global American Empire seems to have determined that the next war to end all wars and usher in the end times will be a financial one. Their response to Russian defensive measures in the Ukraine have revealed this thinking. The Ukrainians have been begging for air cover, heavy weapons and even troops. What Washington has organized for them is a series of Twitter campaigns intended to cancel Putin and all Russians, along with an organized economic war against Russia.

In a way, Ukraine is the proof of concept for the empire. They are fully committed to an economic war with Russia that transcends Ukraine. What happens a month from now when the war is over? The Russians will destroy the Ukrainian army in the east and that will force a deal. Either Zelensky is killed by his own people or he flees. The alternative is Russia simply partitions Ukraine along ethnic lines and imposes the deal on Ukraine that matches what has been proposed.

Will these sanctions last forever? Will the West simply acknowledge reality and strike a deal with the Russians? It seems pretty clear that Washington will not allow Zelensky to make a deal with Russia, so what happens when the Ukrainians get tired of dying and kill Zelensky instead? Will his replacement be recognized? These simple questions make clear that this war Washington has launched against Moscow goes well beyond the events in Ukraine. It is a war of conquest.

There is another front in this war. Beijing correctly understands that they are also in Washington’s death pool. This is why they have backed Moscow and why they will probably look to join the fight sooner rather than later. The reason for that is they know the empire cannot win a two front war. Slapping sanctions on Russia will impoverish the imperial subjects in Europe, but not those in North America. A trade war with China, on the other hand, will hit Americans very hard.

China also has the long term objective of capturing Taiwan, which will open the way for China to being the dominant power in the region. Look at a map and it is clear that Taiwan is the Malta of the China Sea. Whoever controls it controls access to the Pacific and control of the sea lanes to Asia. As long as the Global American Empire controls Taiwan, China is a landlocked power walled off from the sea by countries financially and militarily tied to the American empire.

There are some questions that are unanswered at the moment. One of them is whether China would prefer a shooting war with America or an economic one. If it is the former then the only way to do that is to make a hard play for Taiwan. That would start with blocking access to the Taiwan Straits. This would force the United States to send the navy to open the straights, which would expose those ships to attack. This would give both sides reason to organize for war over Taiwan.

If it is an economic war, then the logical play is to openly and aggressively defy the sanctions regime on Russia. This would lead to sanctions from Washington, which would be answered with sanctions from Beijing. The Chinese could pick a range of strategically important products to withhold from the West. This would have a real impact on the imperial subjects living in North America. Imagine a shortage of clothing and vehicle tires or a shortage of car parts.

There are good arguments for both scenarios, but no one seems to know how China sees this war unfolding. They have certainly studied it. Back in 2013 the Pentagon learned that the Chinese have been studying the relative human capital between China and the GAE. To their shock and horror, they learned that the Chinese do not think diversity is our strength. The Chinese have also been studying Pearl Harbor, which suggests they are thinking about a shooting war as well.

China is not the only other front in this burgeoning global economic war. India has been hostile to the empire since the war on Russia started. Saudi Arabia has also been unpleasant about the sanctions regime. Most likely the pending Iran deal has been scuttled to keep Riyadh from changing teams. Then you have the global south, which will suffer first in this war. How the West keeps them from moving north en masse is a question no one seems to ask.

What Washington has done is organize the West for a global economic war against the rest of the world. It is a conflict of visions. China and Russia imagine a multipolar world while Washington demands a unipolar world. This conflict began and will end around the global economic arrangements. Of course, economic disputes often lead to military disputes, so that is always on the table. No one knows if Washington has thought this through, but we do know who will pay the price.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Worst Generation

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For the most part, generational politics are a self-defeating enterprise, because you end up attacking your allies. It is hard to attack people about whom you know little, but it is easy to find fault with those you know well. Every generation strains against its parents and every generation strains to teach its children. This is why it has been encouraged among the majority populations in the West. It is an effective way of keeping a natural majority from forming up in opposition to the ruling elite.

That said, there is something useful to thinking generationally. Oswald Spengler relied upon a form of generational politics to put forth his theory of history. Of course, we have the old adage, “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”. This describes the inability of grandchildren to manage the wealth passed down to them from their grandparents and parents. This is Spengler’s argument in a nutshell. A civilization rises, accomplishes what it can and then falls into decline.

We are witnessing the end phase with the Global American Empire. It is not exactly a three generation cycle, but the basics are right. One theory of American history says the empire was founded at Gettysburg. That would mean the current generation of rulers is the fifth or sixth generation. On the other hand, some argue the Second World War is the founding of the empire, so that mean the third generation is in charge. The concept still works and is closer to the old adage.

Even if we place the start of the empire in the middle of that last century, the men who founded it were men of the prior age. Roosevelt was born in 1882 so he was an old man during the war. His Secretary of State during the war was born in 1871 so he was even older than his boss. Roosevelt’s Secretary of War was Henry Stimson and he was born in 1867. The point here is the generation that created the American empire were not the “greatest generation”, but their grandparents.

The best example of the distance between the generation that created the empire and the present is in the biography of Cordell Hull, FDR’s Secretary of State. He was born in a log cabin in Tennessee. He was a rising man of his community at 16, when he gave his first political speech. He fought in the Spanish-American War. His father killed a man in a blood feud. Hull is a bit of an outlier, but most of the people in that regime were tough guys who earned their position.

When the next generation took over for the founding generation of the empire, they were mostly men who fought in the war. Then as now, avoiding war was the instinct of the politically inclined, but they needed to have at least worn the uniform. JFK was in the Navy during the war. Johnson was in the war as was Nixon. Of course, Eisenhower was the last man of the founding generation to serve as President. Reagan was the first leader of the empire who had not worn the uniform.

The point here is that when we put aside the pedantry of the generational lines, we see the old adage comes into focus. Spengler’s observation about the life cycle of a civilization becomes clear. That founding period was made by tough men who had to endure great hardship while forging the empire. Their children inherited the empire, but many paid a price while it was being forged. They at least understood the enormous cost to their ancestors and appreciated it.

It is the third generation that is in charge now. This is incredible, given that their grandparents were born in the 19th century. Nancy Pelosi’s father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. was born in 1903. He dodged both wars, by the way. Joe Biden’s parents were a bit younger, born during the Great War. Senator Mitch McConnell’s parents were the same generation as Biden’s parents. In other words, the geezers of the gerontocracy are the third generation and their staff is the fourth.

It is the third generation that followed the type we see in both Spengler’s formulation and that old adage about business. When the Boomer politicians took over in the 1980’s and 1990’s they started to auction off their inheritance. The first step was the financialization of politics. The old “coalition of interest groups” system was replaced with naked graft. Wealthy interests bought the political system because the new generation of leaders had no emotional attachment to it.

That last bit is what distinguishes the third imperial generation. They have no attachment to the system they inherited. It is just something that they were born into so they take it for granted. Their parents at least knew people who had to shed blood for it and they had their grandparents around to contextualize their position. The current rulers of the empire are the spoiled grandchildren of the patriarch. They just want what they want because they feel entitled to it.

We see this in the increasingly reckless management of the empire. Hundreds of millions had to suffer because the spoiled rulers saw Covid as a chance to remake society in their image. Their parents and certainly their grandparents would have been ashamed of this behavior. Those prior generations were capable of shame because they understood the cost of being wrong. They paid it. This generation has never had to suffer so much as a hangnail in their lives.

This reckless and childish behavior is on full display with Ukraine. They are throwing a tantrum because their scheme to dissolve Russia has failed. The Russians finally had enough of the meddling on her border and invaded Ukraine. The whole thing could be resolved peacefully, but the spoiled American ruling class must have its way. While they bang their rattles on their highchairs, millions of Ukrainians suffer. The collective West is getting poorer and more dangerous as a result.

The arc of family dynasties usually leads to the final generations declaring bankruptcy and selling off what they can to earn some money. For civilizations, it means some period of crisis while the rotten generations in the final phase make their mistakes and bring the epoch to a close. The Global American Empire is coming to an end but the West is not going away. A new generation of builders will rise up, create a new civilization and the cycle will begin anew.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Bretton Woods III

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Note: The Monday Taki post is up and related to this post. All of a sudden, macroeconomics is becoming an important topic again. The Sunday podcast is also up behind the green door.

The technical definition of money is “something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment.” For most people this has always meant the legal tender of their homeland. Until fairly recent, this was a coin with the face of the king on it. The better the reputation of the king, the more valuable his coin, because traders were more likely to accept it. A good king made sure his coins had a consistent amount of gold or silver in it.

The reason for that is precious metals like gold and silver were always the world’s reserve currency. Everyone in the world would accept gold and silver for payment, even in places that restricted the use of the metals. You could always take the metal to the king’s mint and exchange it for his coins. Granted, he took a fee for himself and you were charged the cost of minting the coins, but that was predictable. In the end, all currency was measured in gold and silver.

We no longer use gold coin for money. Every country in the world uses what the economist call fiat currency. This is a government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver. Instead, it is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the issuing government. Money is now an expression of the government power behind it. The US dollar is the reserve currency of the world largely due to the fact the American government was the most trusted.

Hard money enthusiasts assume this means the United States can  print as much money as it needs, but this is not exactly true. The international monetary system that evolved after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970’s is a framework that controls the exchange rate of the major currencies. Every major currency is based on the dollar, just as oil and gas are priced in dollars. The petrodollar was created in the 1970’s when the Bretton Woods system collapsed.

What the current system does, in effect, is link currencies to the supply of crude oil through the dollar. How much oil you can buy with your home currency is dependent upon how many dollars you can buy with it. It is not a direct link, as oil production rises and falls and the supply of dollars rises and falls, relative to other major currencies like the Euro or Chinese Yuan. In effect, America controls the world by controlling the price of commodities like crude oil and natural gas.

In the old days, minting coins was a profit center for the king. A strong king would restrict the use of other coins in his domain. His people had to take their foreign coins, gold and silver to his mint for conversion to his coin. In addition to the cost of production, he tacked on a profit for himself. This is called seigniorage and it works the same for fiat money as it does hard money. This profit from controlling the global currency is one way the United States has grown so rich.

One of the consequences of this system is the world has an insatiable appetite for US government debt. Because it is denominated in dollars and considered the safest of financial bets, it makes the ideal collateral. This has allowed the United States and other Western countries to run massive trade and spending deficits. The world wants the debt and the world wants to sell the West their products. US debt was 30% of GDP in 1980 and now it is 127% of GDP.

This is the subtext of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Russia and China, especially China, are tired of this arrangement. They correctly see it as to the advantage of Washington at their expense. This is why China is backing Russia’s play to demand rubles for its energy and agricultural products. This would pave the way for China demanding yuan for its products and the right to pay for energy in yuan. India is also quietly supporting what the Russians are doing for the same reasons.

This is why Washington is in no mood to strike a deal over Ukraine. It is not the only reason, but it is a big part of the plan to protect the dollar. If Washington can break the Putin government through financial war, China and India will drop their plans to buck the dollar in the global economy. A century after the Great War, the new global war is being mainly fought in finance. The West, led by America, is now at war with the world over control of the global currency system.

It is probably a war that the West cannot win. The reason is the same reason the king would put his face on his coins. Money is the physical expression of power. The strong king could enforce his monetary policy in his domain and his money had a predictable amount of gold and silver. In effect, his money was the representation of his people and the cultural that defined them. The legal tender of a country is the measure of that country’s wealth and power relative to the world.

The West no longer makes or invents anything useful. The power of the West is the legacy power to control the financial system. It is a system arranged by Mercurian people in order to control the Apollonians. The former are the people who operate as middlemen and service providers, while the latter are the people who grow the food, make the goods and keep the gears properly lubricated. The former operates in the West, while the latter exist outside the West.

Reality is the thing that does not go away when you stop believing in it and reality says that growing and making things counts for more than thinking of things. The reason Washington has not crushed the Russian economy is the world needs the stuff Russia pulls pout of the earth. In this economic war of attrition, Russian can feed itself and keep its homes warm, while Europe will have to hope America can provide the food and energy at a reasonable fee.

The most likely outcome of this global conflict is something people have suspected for quite some time. The global currency will become a basket of commodities like natural gas and crude oil. Maybe agricultural products will be in the mix. The reason for this is the world runs on energy and food. Bretton Woods III, as some are calling it, will be a new set of currency arrangements whereby money is based on its purchasing power for the agreed upon basket of products.

What this means in the short run is that the West is about to get poorer as governments are forced to cut spending and debase the currency to get out from under domestic debt obligations like pension payments. It also means the end of globalism as has been defined by Washington for three decades. Trade will continue, but between countries rather than independent global enterprises. Thirty years after the Cold War the world is about to start healing and return to something close to normal.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Less Is More

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The show this week is a follow up to the show last week. The original idea was to cover all of this in one show, but that would take more than an hour. I decided to split it up and do the second half in response to the expected complaints to the first part. We live in a post-liberal age, so we have to start thinking that way. First, we consider the liberal arguments about rights or political ideas and then look at it in the context of the present age and the history that led us to this point.

This really is the dissident project. Criticizing the current order is important and necessary, but there has to be an alternative. That does not mean we spend our days working on 25-point plans for after the revolution. Instead, we need to think about why the liberal order failed and then imagine how it could have been designed to withstand the assaults that caused the failure. The fact is the people who undermined the liberal order did so using specific tactics and strategies.

Of course, this leads to the question of what is possible in this age. A topic that will come up more and more in dissident circles is what kind of society is possible in a majority-minority world? What kind of America is possible in a multi-polar world where the state is limited by how much it can tax the people? That is a vastly different world from where we are now. Few people alive have lived in an America with a ruling class constrained by the limits of taxation.

The answer may be that no coherent society is possible on a continent full of people with radically different cultural perspectives. It is hard for most people to imagine, but the end of the Global American Empire could turn out to be a North America fragmented like post-Roman Spain. Sudden poverty and the collapse of legitimate authority could shatter the continent. The result could be a great reordering around the general features that define the current population.

It is a big topic, but the place to start is the small items. Speech is a good topic because it touches on all of these items. It is also why the subversives have always focused on speech as their lever to unsettle society. Once you start to declare certain things off-limits you inevitably are determining who decides. This is where the bad guys inserted themselves into the bloodstream of American society. They became the deciders and the results show that to be the great American mistake.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

  • Opening
  • Fred Johnson’s Dilemma
  • The Problem With Libel Suits
  • You Own Your Words
  • SLAPP Fights

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

Regime-ology

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Regime-ology is a new field of study so the practitioners are still working out the tools and methods for interpreting regime activity. Unlike Kremlinology, on which regime-ology is modeled, the focus is not on a hierarchical structure. The Soviet empire was run by a vertical organization that operated like a corporation. The American empire is a horizontal organization modeled on the Mafia. It is a collection of elite gangster organizations jostling for power within the elite.

With Kremlinology, events could be interpreted as either a signal from the party elite or representing internal party changes. If someone disappeared from the public eye, it meant he had fallen out of favor with the party leaders. If party media reported something hanky about a party member, it was assumed to have been done with the permission of the party leaders to prepare the public for a change. The target was being shaped as a scoundrel so he could be denounced.

Regime-ology is a bit more complicated. If someone disappears for a while, it could mean nothing more than he is having a blood transfusion at one of Google’s secret rejuvenation centers. On the other hand, disparaging information about an oligarch in regime media could simply mean that one mob family is unhappy with another mob family and this is how they are communicating it. Using the media promotes the interests of the gangster class and delivers the message.

That is probably how to interpret the sudden interest by regime media in the famous Hunter Biden laptop from two years ago. For those not interested, this was the laptop that President Biden’s drug-addled son abandoned at a Delaware computer shop, which contained a trove of embarrassing information about the family. In addition to thousands of naked selfies and pics of Hunter smoking crack and meth with prostitutes, it had details of the Biden family criminal dealings.

Regime media dutifully covered this up by declaring it Russian propaganda and going as far as to imply it was a Trump campaign dirty trick. The New York Post, which was the first to report the laptop story, came under withering assault from the Silicon Valley crime families until they dropped the story. Facebook started banning people from their site for mentioning the story. Like the people air brushed from official photos in the Soviet Union, this story was erased from public view.

This is nothing new. The power of regime media is in what they can make the public ignore and this was a typical example. They do this by framing the issue as good guys versus bad guys, which is catnip for the American moralizer. Then they declare the thing to be ignored as the black hat and let the moralizers do the rest. Anyone mentioning the laptop on-line or even in private conversation was declared a crazy QAnon conspiracy theorist by others in their circle.

For no reason at all, the laptop story is back. First the intel community told the New York Times to admit they lied two years ago about it being fake. They did not mention that it was the intel community that lied, of course. Then the Washington Post was told to write about the Biden family’s criminal dealings that were on the laptop. The Post is the official organ of the intelligence community. You will recall that the Post was instrumental in the Russian collusion hoax in 2016.

Even more interesting, the scandal ridden outlet CNN has been given the green light to unleash their nutters on the story. This is a story posted by Dean Obeidallah, a former circus clown and far-left conspiracy theorist. In addition to being a conspiracy hub, CNN is also a popular landing spot for disgraced members of the intel community. Andrew McCabe and Josh Campbell landed there after being forced out of their jobs. The FBI uses CNN to control the Antifa/BLM community.

Taken together, this new interest in the Hunter Biden laptop story suggests the intel community is unhappy with the Biden crime family. It could be a warning shot about the recent rantings by Biden in Poland. This has created huge problems for the foreign policy gangsters running the war with Russia. They have been forced to spend their time telling European leaders that Biden should be ignored. This is not a good look for the Global American Empire in the middle of a crisis.

One way to look at this is that they are preparing the way for Biden to be removed from office this year. The plan was for him to pretend to be in charge through the midterm then hand things off to strong diverse female. Team Biden has been making plans for him to run again in 2024, while he is clearly in rapid decline. The Hunter Biden story could be the leverage to force Team Biden to stick to the deal. He takes the blame for the midterms, retires for health reasons and the laptop disappears.

On the other hand, this could be the start of a plot to hang the Ukraine debacle on Biden and his crooked son. The regime media is being told to sell the Ukraine war as a smashing success, but that can only go on for another month. Reality in the ground says the Russians are slowly grinding up the Ukrainian army. In a month, there will be little of it left in the east. Whether it is by force or by negotiations, the Russians will get the terms they laid out last month.

Then there are the economic sanctions. This is proving to be a disaster for the Global American Empire. The Germans just cut a deal with the Russians to buy gas in rubles, even through both sides are pretending otherwise. The Germans will buy the gas in Euros from Gazprom, which will then convert them immediately into rubles at the agreed upon exchange rate. This is de facto acceptance by Germany that they will buy gas from Russia in rubles. The rest of Europe will now follow.

What we could be seeing here is Afghanistan 2.0. The military industrial complex, the intel community and the foreign policy establishment opposed the withdraw from Afghanistan, but team Biden insisted on it. They let Afghanistan collapse and then let Team Biden take the blame for it. Notice that no one actually responsible in the military, intelligence of foreign policy realm was fired. We could be seeing the same thing afoot with the looming Ukraine disaster.

Again, regime-ology is a new field. We do not know what we do not know, so we are left to our imaginations. Maybe Hunter Biden is so mobbed up that even the thoroughly corrupt FBI has to acknowledge it. Maybe this is a feint to distract from something much worse that is in the wind. All we can know is that Hunter Biden will never be charged and we will never know the truth about the Biden family corruption. In a gangster state like America, those things are handled internally.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Fighting Time

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One of the puzzles from the Great War is how the leaders on both sides allowed themselves to get drawn into the war. There are plenty of reasons why each country would want war, including the infamous one that caused a certain Austrian fellow to coin the term “the big lie.” The problem with all of the reasons is they made little sense in light of the obvious costs of war. As a result, the Great War is a great example of how events can tale on a life of their own.

The remarkable thing about that war is that once it settled into trench warfare no one realized the hopelessness of it. One can understand how the initial events would spiral into a global conflict. That is not a new phenomenon. Similarly, you can see how the initial moves in the war made a lot of sense to the leaders on both sides. This was the first industrial war, so they had a lot to learn. New weapons needed new tactics but few people realized that at the start of the war.

The great puzzle of the war is that the sides did not see the hopelessness of the situation once in settled into a stalemate. Both sides were losing tens of thousands of men with each attack, only to gain a few yards of ground. The Battle of the Marne and the subsequent race to the sea made sense. The losses were high, but both sides had hope for quick victory. Two years later the French and Germans lost over a million men at Verdun and the winner got nothing for their trouble.

A century on and we are getting some fresh insight into why the Western leaders in the Great War were incapable of seeing things clearly. The war in Ukraine is proving to be nothing like Western planners imagined. They assumed the Ukrainians would stall the Russians into a stalemate of urban warfare. The world would rally to the sanctions regime and it would quickly be a question of how long the Russians could suffer the economic consequences of the sanctions.

After just one month it is clear this is not happening. The Russians did not fight like the NATO planners imagined. Instead of rushing to Kiev, they pinned the Ukrainian army in the north, using classic maneuver tactics. Meanwhile their main army is systematically destroying the Ukrainian army in the south and east. It also appears the Russians were well prepared for the Ukrainian tactic of digging into urban areas. It is now just a matter of time before the Ukrainian army in the east is lost.

That is just one miscalculation by the West, but it should be concerning. The Russians are not doing anything novel in Ukraine. They are using classic tactics that have been used in Europe since Napoleon. Further, they are following a doctrine they evolved in the Second Chechen war. That was a doctrine Vladimir Putin created as the guy running that war for Russia. It seems that no one in the west bothered to study the man they claim is the new Hitler.

That is only one small part of the miscalculation. The decision to cutoff the Russian central bank appears to have been a massive blunder. The Russians, faced with the threat of their dollar and Euro assets being seized by Western banks have told the West they must pay for goods in rubles. Otherwise, they are forced to send product to the West but not be paid for it. Alternatively, they would have to make concessions in order to get their assets unfrozen by the West.

Why anyone in the West thought this was a good idea is a mystery. It turns out that the Biden administration did not consult with the Federal Reserve. Europe appears to have just followed along without questioning the policy. Now that Russia has countered their move, Europe is in a terrible position. They either support the ruble with massive purchases or they face an imminent shortage of natural gas. That means rationing of energy products could happen as soon as next month.

Of course, the words “shortage” and “rationing” will trigger the natural response, which is hording and price gouging. That will also mean a political response. The German political elite appear to be embracing their inner Marie Antoinette by telling the Germans to wear a sweater as they shiver in the dark. Presumably, they will tell the people to eat bugs when the food shortages hit this summer. Maybe German TV will start celebrating the Turnip Winter as a way to motivate the public.

In fairness, we have to no idea how the Russians and Chinese are viewing this thing as Western media refuses to cover that aspect. We should assume the lack of food riots and social unrest in Russia means they are not teetering on collapse. This was the prediction at the start of this war. The best and brightest in the American managerial elite predicted the Russians would have collapsed by now. They also assumed China would be wavering in their support at this stage.

The point is, we are seeing in real time how supposedly clever political leaders can stagger from one blunder to the next. Unlike the Great War, this war has one side that seems to have updated its thinking since the last century. The Russians are planning for tomorrow, while the West is planning for 1985. The Biden people actually thought his speech in Poland would be his Brandenburg Gate moment. That is the most terrifying event of this crisis so far.

There we see the best parallel to the Great War. The men moving pieces on the board were men of a prior age. They were trying to fight the old wars. Similarly, the political leaders were operating in a 19th century mindset. The trouble was they were armed with 20th century weaponry. Today, the West is led by 20th century men desperate to maintain 20th century arrangements. Their opponent is not Russian, China or the new world order, but the passage of time.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Crisis

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Broadly speaking, a crisis comes in two forms. There is the internal crisis driven by irreconcilable contradictions. Then there is the external crisis that is driven by some unusual occurrence like a natural disaster. The latter tests mostly the ability of the system to weather the storm and recover. The former tests the ability of the system to radically alter itself in order to address the contradiction. This is the most dangerous crisis and the one that few systems survive.

Of course, the internal crisis can be papered over for a long time until some external crisis comes along and makes that impossible. The external crisis puts pressure on the system, forcing it to respond under duress. The internal problems are then made obvious as the system responds poorly. Efforts to quickly resolve those issues in order to address the immediate problems just create new problems. This was the process that led to the French Revolution.

It is also where the Global American Empire finds itself. In theory, the system relies on the trust of the people. The citizens of America trust that the way they choose leaders, while never perfect, eventually gets them leaders who address the needs of the people by respecting the will of the people. It may require a few elections, but the politicians eventually figure out what they need to do to make things right. This belief rests on the additional belief that the politicians want this result.

That is not reality and people are clearly beginning to understand this. Most Americans have no genuine representation in Congress. The Democrats represent abstract identity groups that get plenty of airtime but are a tiny minority. Most people, for example, only know crossdressers through the media, not in real life. Most black people can easily describe a woman. Of course, the GOP represents no one. White voters are well outside the ideological orbit of the Republicans.

After the 2020 election, it was generally assumed that Joe Biden would not finish out his first term in office. His physical condition was the main reason. During the campaign he was mostly kept out of the public eye. When he was in public, he looked like a man struggling with the ravages of time. There was also the fact that his second was clearly picked to be his successor. The Left has developed an obsession with elevating black females and Kamala Harris is supposedly one of them.

The betting initially was that Biden would make it through the midterms and then announce that he was stepping down for health reasons. This would allow Harris to finish Biden’s term and then run for two terms on her own. This was a left-wing talking point that was echoed by mainstream conservatives. It was mostly about depressing the populist opposition. That plan assumed every other part of their grand strategy would go according to theory.

Here we are seven months out from the November elections and it is clear that Joe Biden needs to be removed from office now. His insane rantings in Europe about Russia have terrified the rest of the world. More important, the world is adjusting to the fact that the Global American Empire has an incoherent figure head. The Russians call him grandfather, not out of respect but from pity. The world sees Biden as a doddering old man who is not in charge of his administration.

This is an untenable situation. Every political system requires energy in the executive, even if it is just symbolic. The North Korean public is regularly treated to images of Kim Jong-un looking vigorous and in charge. The Chinese make sure Xi Jinping looks like a CEO of a successful firm. American presidents have often been shown doing cool outdoor things like chopping wood or playing sports. Society needs a leader and one who looks like he is fit and ready to lead. That is not Joe Biden.

Of course, the times need a fit leader. The crisis in Europe has now become a global crisis because no one has a hand on the tiller. The inmates are running the asylum in the Biden Administration. In prior generations, this crisis would have featured one-on-one meetings between the ruler of the Global American Empire and the parties at the center of the dispute. In this case, it would have meant a summit between Russia, China and the Global American Empire.

Ukraine is not the only issue. The fallout from two years of Covid mismanagement are creating serious trouble for normal people. Food prices have been climbing for a year and are now rising at an alarming rate. Retail and wholesale inflation are at levels not seen since the 1970’s. Labor markets are now showing the first signs of crisis as the deliberate demographic changes turnup in hiring. This is the unsaid basis of the commercial pilot shortage in America.

In other words, the Global American Empire is facing both serious external crises and irreconcilable internal crises. The lack of energy in the executive is allowing these problems to spiral out of control. Compounding it is the fact that the plan to install Kamala Harris looks unworkable. She is mentally and emotionally unfit for the ceremonial position she has now. The weird cackling and general ineptitude say she can never be permitted to hold power.

Of course, the coming elections mean a blowout of historic proportions for the ruling half of the uniparty. Professionals who study these things suggest this may be the worst election conditions for either party in American history. As a practical matter, that means the Republican half of the uniparty will play a major role in selecting the person to fill the remainder of Biden’s term. They may be tasked with removing Biden and Harris in order to save the system from total ruin.

That sounds like good news for the system, but the Republican half of the uniparty is every bit as inept and morally bankrupt as the other half. Again, this is a party without a genuine constituency. Their voters are just choosing the least bad option. That option is built to deny those voters real power. In other words, leadership of the system will go from people obsessed over esoteric identity groupings to people focused on denying the majority any influence over the system.

For normal people, this means a system that becomes increasingly erratic and paranoid about the general public. The things that matter like employment conditions, food prices and energy costs will continue to get worse. The standard of living is about to drop precipitously for most people. The quality of life is also going to decline. This is the cycle that the aristocracy faced in 18th century France. It is also what the party faced in the waning years of the Soviet Union.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The China Trap

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Note: I did a 90-minute interview with the Friends of Aquinas channel. I have to say it was a very enjoyable conversation. The Monday Taki post is up. Of course, Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door along with Thursday War Talk.

The Western media has been set to frame the war in Ukraine as a replay of the events in the 1930’s, with a healthy does of American moralizing. Putin is Hitler, of course, and Ukraine is the totally innocent victim. The narrative this time is different, because the “good guys” were ready and they have lured Putin into a trap. Biden made public what has been said privately, which is that Washington is planning regime change for Russia and then will move onto regime change in China.

It is entirely possible that this admission is not the result of a Biden gaffe or a bit of 4-D chess by his handlers. instead, this may be part of a trap laid by China, and to a lesser degree, Russia. Joe Biden admitted what most world leaders have understood since the war in Iraq. That is, the Global American Empire has no respect for the politics of other countries, so if they see those politics as a hindrance, they will try to decapitate the government and install a friendly regime.

Further, the reckless response by Washington to the Russian invasion has caused most of the world to rethink the global financial system. Saudi Arabia is now talking with China about doing business in something other than dollars. India has struck a deal with Russia to do business in rupees. India and Russia are now using China’s alternative to the SWIFT system for bank communications. Suddenly there is a race to build parallel financial structures by most of the world.

The primary beneficiary of this result is China. The reason the world prefers to do business in dollars and use US treasuries as collateral is the system of rules governing global finance are rooted in the dollar as the default currency. Those rules benefit America at the expense of the world, but the trade-off has been a fixed and predictable set of rules, including responsible management of the global currency. That trade-off no longer makes sense thanks to Washington’s actions.

That has been the primary result of the sanctions. Washington broke the basic rules of the system to launch this attack on Russia. Cutting off Moscow has been seen by most of the world as a violation of the basic promise of the system. Cutting of the Russian central bank without consulting the rest of the world is probably going to be viewed as the great mistake of this whole affair. That is supposed to be a punishment agreed upon by the world in only the worst cases.

The question no one is asking is whether China saw this as a potential outcome of the Russian invasion. They seem to have been prepared for it. Similarly, Russia seems to have been prepared for the assault. The ruble declined but stabilized after the Moscow central bank stepped into stabilize it. China was ready to meet with India and Russia to work out a joint response. Even South Africa seems to have been in the loop on what to do if Washington came down hard on Russia.

The fact is, Russia never would have gone into Ukraine without knowing the Chinese would backstop them financially. Russian is a big powerful country, but it is a relatively poor country so it cannot go it alone for too long. It is true that Iran has figured out how to get around the sanctions regime, but Russians have had a taste of the good life and would no doubt tire of the hardships. With China and India bucking the sanctions regime, those hardships are now greatly minimized.

Reports indicate that Washington was telling Beijing that Moscow was plotting the invasion and may have signaled their response. China has plenty of spies embedded in Washington, as well as the big social media companies. People forget that China downloaded the data from the Office of Professional Management. They have lots of close friends in Washington politics. The point being is that China probably had a good idea of what America was planning as a response.

If you look at a map, what you see is that most of the world is not going along with the sanctions regime on Russia. Instead of the West isolating Russia, it looks like it is the rest of the world isolating the West. More important, the cost of the sanctions regime is hitting the West where they feel it, their wallets. Prices are soaring in Western countries for food and fuel. Britain is about to experience the biggest drop in the standard of living since records have been kept.

It very well may be that the reason Russia invaded Ukraine is it was part of a much larger plan to deal with the Global American Empire. Russia saw the chance to reassert her ancient claims in eastern Europe and weaken NATO. China saw the chance to bait Washington into smashing its own financial system. The rest of the world is objectively looking at things and seeing a new multipolar world. They want to be on good terms with all of the new power centers of the future.

It is too soon to know if Washington is being played, but the indications thus far suggest they do not see what is happening. Allegedly, the Biden people did not talk to the Federal Reserve about their sanctions regime. This is why cutting off the Moscow central bank has blown up in their face. That is the sort of error that suggests the decision makers are not thinking things through. They also seem to have fell for the military assessments from the Pentagon.

We will know much more in the coming months, but it is possible that what we are seeing is the result of a clever trap laid out by Beijing and Moscow. The war in Ukraine is just one piece of a larger puzzle. This is a puzzle clear to everyone but Washington, which is still high off the fumes of the 1990’s. They still believe they are at the end of history and leading the world to the promised land. Instead, they may be leading the West into a massive financial disaster.

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!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.