Free Speech

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If you are old enough to remember the 1990’s or earlier, then you remember when the Left was the free speech side of the debate. If you are a Baby Boomer then you probably remember the Free Speech Movement. It is an odd thing that has happened in the last ten years or so where the poles have reversed on many things, but none more so than the issue of speech. It is what the left-wing crazies call the “far-right” that upholds the old liberal traditions on speech, not the Left.

In 1978, the ACLU came to the aid of a neo-Nazi group that wanted to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie. The area was mostly Jewish, which is why the group wanted to march through their neighborhood. The ACLU made clear that they thought the group was full of terrible people but they had a right to march wherever marching was permitted. Young people were taught in school about this because it was supposed to be a great example of the free speech principle.

There is no way the ACLU would do this today. Instead, they would be on the other side trying to ruin the lives of anyone who dared speak up for the group. The ACLU, like all of the legacy civil rights groups from last century, opposes the basic civil rights of white Americans on the grounds of race. It is a good corollary to Robert Conquest’s second law of politics. Any organization that does business with leftists eventually is consumed by or destroyed by leftists.

The interesting thing about speech and the so-called far-right is that many who claim to be far-right also oppose Western liberalism. You have people who want an authoritarian state, but also say they want free speech. Free expression is inextricably bound up in liberal governance. You cannot have a liberal society in the Western sense without free expression and you cannot have illiberal government with it. Free expression is the cornerstone of the liberal society.

It is why the Antifa types are anti-speech. They are illiberal and authoritarian. These are people who make various claims to communism, Marxism and even anarchism, but embrace the unfettered use of corporate power to suppress speech. It is fair to say that the anti-speech movement in America is the expression of corporate power. Of course, what passes for the Left these days operates from the HR departments of global enterprise and free speech is antithetic to the corporate state.

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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

sa***@mi*********************.com











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This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening
  • 03:00: The War On Speech
  • 23:00: The Benefit of Speech
  • 43:00: The Harm of Speech

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

The Evolution of War

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Comments: I know the spam filter has become annoying to some. I am working on an alternative to what I am using. In the interim I have made a few changes and will keep tinkering with the current system. Thank you for your patience.

The first men to go to war with men from another tribe no doubt went to that first battle with the weapons they used to hunt. We have no record of that first battle, but we can safely assume it involved spears, clubs and probably rocks. It is possible that the throwing rock was developed just for these battles, as the thrown rock is much more effective against men than animals. The throwing rock is probably the first weapon developed just for killing other men.

One day a group of men decided to raid the territory of another tribe and they were met with a terrifying new weapon, the bow and arrow. Again, we have no idea when this happened, but logic says there was a first time use for the bow in war. A group sorted out how to launch a small version of their spear at an animal. This was much safer than getting up close and personal. The next logical step was to use this cool new weapon against invaders from another tribe.

Maybe it was the sling or maybe it was the bow, but most likely it was the fear of projectile weapons that led to the shield and the use of it. Shields are useful against spears, but they limit offensive ability. Again, we will never know, but most likely there was a first battle where the shield was used. The guys with bows were stunned to see this new terrifying weapon. Instead of raining death down on their enemy, their enemy was able to advance under the cover of their shields.

We are seeing this playout in Ukraine. The Russians are probably the world’s best at tank strategy. They have a lot of them and they have always been at the top in terms of tank technology. Russia is a land power, so it makes sense that they are the best with the dominant weapons of land warfare. In the Second World War it was the T-34 that beat back the Nazis and drove them back to Berlin. It remains the most popular tank in the world, despite being 80-years old.

The terrifying counter is the anti-tank weapon. The concept is pretty simple. You launch a missile at a tank that can penetrate its armor. The trick is either in hitting the tank from beyond its range or getting close enough to hit it from a blind spot. This is where the modern anti-tank weapons have become so important. The Javelin system allows a team of two to get close, fire from cover and take out a tank. The weapon is cheap and it can be used by the dumbest infantrymen.

The effects of this weapon are clear in Ukraine. Instead of leading with their armor, the Russians have been forced to use artillery and cruise missiles to soften up the line of contact and then use infantry to clear the way for tanks. This has not made the tank obsolete, but it has forced a change in its use. It now has to be deployed initially as a stand-off weapon, like an artillery piece. Instead of being the tip of the spear for ground forces, it is now a follow on weapon.

As an aside, this is a good example of the knock-on effect. Since the anti-tank weapon neutralizes the tank, the counter is the use of artillery. In the second Chechen war and now in Ukraine, the Russians are relying on their massive artillery advantage, which is turning the defensive positions into rubble. In other words, the Ukrainians will still lose and they will have their cities reduced to dust. The anti-tank weapon is making war bloodier and costlier to the civilian population.

The West thinks this is all good news, but there is bad news for the Global American Empire in Ukraine. For starters, the Russians have had the chance to test their S-400 surface-to-air missile system against serious opposition. It turns out to be as lethal as advertised, able to take out aircraft from over 250-miles away. It is cheap, mobile and easy to deploy in a wide range of conditions. It is to American air power what the Javelin missile system is to Russian tank warfare.

The American way of war is to gain air superiority and then pound the enemy from the sky until their mobility and communications are broken. Then the ground forces come in to attack the weakened enemy positions. The S-400 suddenly turns those 100-million dollar aerial weapons platforms into expensive target practice. Since these systems are cheap and getting cheaper, they will proliferate. It is why America threatens every country that buys them with sanctions.

That is not the only bad news. The Russians have been testing what the media is calling a hypersonic missile. The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-to-surface system is probably not a hypersonic weapon, given the technical issues involved with the technology, but that does not matter. It is fast enough, lethal enough and cheap enough to pose a serious problem for a sea power like America. The ability to strike a relatively small target from over a thousand miles away is a game changer.

The reason this is important is it means those carriers America relies upon to project air power will quickly become expensive target practice. Some have argued that this has already happened with land-based anti-ship weapons, but that is disputed. This new system ends the debate. If America wants to deploy carriers to protect Taiwan, they will soon need to find a way to make them invisible. Otherwise, they are billion dollar monuments to man’s innovative nature.

Of course, these innovations that are neutralizing the strengths of great power militaries are not new. The grinding deadlock of the Great War was due, in part, to the ability of all sides to neutralize offensive weapons, other than artillery. Both sides were left to pound one another from extensive trench systems. In this age, it means both sides are left with stand-off systems like missiles. It also makes the use of nuclear weapons more attractive as a way to break the deadlock.

This being the modern age, the trenches will be virtual. America launched the equivalent of a race to the sea by breaking all promises and declaring financial war on the Russian economy. The Russians have responded but have yet to launch their best financial weapons. China and India are now joining the fight, America has announced sanctions on China in response. Instead of trench war, this century’s great war will mean barriers to trade and capital.

Instead of reducing Europe to a moonscape, it will bring about a global depression that will set off unknown consequences. The world will have a food shortage this year due to the halt of agricultural products from Russia. Energy prices are rising, which will amplify the inflation pressure. Like the Great War, we are about to enter a test of wills where all sides try to bring the other to the breaking point economically. Washington is betting you can starve longer than Russians or Chinese.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Elite Dysfunction

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It is popular in some circles to compare the current crisis to that which gripped America at the end of the 1960’s cultural revolution. Then as now, the white middle-class was disenchanted with government. The nation also faced maddening economic problems like stagflation. Similarly, the issue of race was center stage, largely driven by the political Left. We even have a version of the Nixon years in Donald Trump having been impeached twice for vexing the Washington elite.

This comparison is natural as the dominant demographic in American is the Baby Boomer generation who came of age in this period. It often feels like the current political elite is nostalgic for that time and is trying to recreate it. The cargo cult vibe was most evident in the Trump years. This comparison is also reassuring as what followed the turmoil and ugliness of the 1970’s was the reforms of the Reagan years and a long period of economic stability and prosperity.

It is a comforting narrative, but the comparison is superficial. For example, in the 1970’s, before Reagan was a realistic option, a consensus was forming among the various elites of society around important reforms. Business and banking elites had concluded that the regulatory code needed drastic reform in order for the economy to adjust to the changing economic realities. Those FDR era regulations designed to limit the accumulation of capital had to be rewritten

Reforms to the regulatory regime actually started under Jimmy Carter. The Airline Deregulation Act was passed in 1978. This begun three years earlier when Ted Kennedy took credit for launching the initiative. The monetarist revolution in finance began in the 1970’s and culminated in the appointment of Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 1979. He famously began the process of takling inflation by tightening the money supply.

The point is that long before Reagan was an option, the elites in America were coalescing around a reform agenda. Business, finance, the military and the political class were thinking about a reform agenda. The public was hungry for reform, as they were suffering directly from the excesses of the cultural revolution and the recklessness of left-wing economic policy. Of course, the country was demographically stable with a majority population of close to 90%.

Critics of the comparison to the 1970’s start with that last bit. America is now a balkanized land of strangers. Thirty years of open borders has brought tens of millions of alien people into the country. Thirty years of policies aimed at busting up families and communities have hit their mark. The United States will be a majority-minority society within the next twenty years. Recreating the 1980’s consensus with a population that looks nothing like that of the 1980’s seems impossible.

That may be true, but the bigger problem is at the other end. The truth is no one voted for the tax reform agenda in the 1980’s. No one voted for regulatory reform or even the reforms of the military. These items were never on the agenda in an explicate way, but rather in the form of personalities. People vote for people. The pleasant people on the side of the elite agenda won national elections and the boring and often weird people opposed to that agenda lost those elections.

Fast forward to the present crisis and it is hard to tease out a reform agenda from the current ruling elites. Wall Street is operating like they are planning to swallow the family jewels, pack a suitcase and head for the border. It is a massive bust out of what is left of the American economy. Global business is more interested in currying favor with China and India than in what is happening in America. In both cases, the viewpoint is post-nationalism and even post-American.

The military industrial complex, which was essential to the reform efforts of the 70’s and 80’s, is locked in a defensive crouch. Its singular focus is on maintaining its budget, even at the expense of its effectiveness. They have embraced the dangerous antiwhite politics of the academy, just to please the budget makers in Washington. We have seen men claiming to be generals sobbing about their whiteness, all so they can please the deranged people on the appropriations committee.

Washington, of course, is a disaster. The old conservative side of the political class is trapped in the 1980’s. It is nothing but old men sentimental for their long dead heroes and young men flattering them for a paycheck. The old progressive side is a museum exhibit that talks. For them it is either 1968 or 1938. Then you have the new generation of radicals who are a toxic blend narcissism and ignorance. The few populist voices in the political class have no agenda to offer.

People like to talk about how “polarized” the public is on the various issues, but in reality, it is the ruling elite that is shattered. The only thing holding them together is the growing fear that the tide will go out and the world will see that they have been swimming naked. The impulse to surround themselves with razor wire and armed soldiers is the one thing they have in common. For them, reform is simply how to get better tools to keep the rabble at bay.

The biggest disparity between the crisis of the 1970’s and the crisis of today is in the intellectual class. The reformers of the 70’s and 80’s had a massive library of thought and analysis to draw from while debating reform. Conservatism was brimming with critiques and proposals. Monetary reform, for example, was the result of decades of debate on the topic. Even on the Left there was active debate about what comes after the cultural revolution of the 1960’s.

Today, intellectual life is barren within the mainstream. On the Left there is no debate, just a collection of bizarre theories from post-Marx radicalism. Their answer to inflation is a protest in favor of crossdressers playing girls’ sports. Conservatism is a dead space now and the debate over how to reform it is sentimental revanchism. No one in elite intellectual circles is capable of starting from present reality and talking about how to change the institutions to adapt to the new reality.

The reform era we associate with Reagan and the conservative movement was largely the result of a ruling elite seeking to revitalize itself. This was obvious if you read elite journals of the time. Reform was a serious topic debated by serious people. Today we see the opposite. The elites show no interest in revitalizing themselves and they actively discourage debates to the contrary. The current crisis looks more like 1970’s Soviet Union than 1970’s America.

Now, this is where dissidents will chime in with two corrections. One is that the claim that elites are plotting to reform the world. The Build Back Better stuff was a plan to reorganize society in their image. The World Economic Forum is an effort to reform the management of the West. Biden’s animators are now having him mouth the words “new world order” in speeches. In other words, the elite are trying to reform the world, just not in a way that serves the public interest.

The other claim is that these debates are no longer happening in elite publications or in elite forums. Instead, they are happening at private confabs like Davos or maybe at the Bohemian Club’s annual retreat. The global over-class now conducts its business far away from public view. Further, it aims are not expressed in legislation but in global regulation through international organizations. Non-governmental organization now do the hard work that used to be done by national legislatures.

The problem with the first critique is that what is being sold as a new world order shows no signs of being a reform movement. Instead, it looks like a lagging indicator of civilizational collapse. Like the American elite, the Western elite is held together by the fear the system will not hold. Guys like Klaus Schwab, the comical head of the World Economic Forum, are just monorail salesman exploiting the angst of the Western managerial elites. He is running a long con.

As to the second critique, there is no evidence that the people driving elite policy are operating from anything by avarice. You do not see deep thinkers invited to their soirées at Davos or other elite confabs. Maybe there are secret gatherings of the elites where their big-brained advisors layout their plans for global domination. Without any evidence to support this claim, there is no reason to think it is true. Instead, the chaos we are seeing probably reflects the chaos of the elites.

Now, it is possible that there is an elite consensus forming up, but it needs a bit more pain to whip it into existence. The coming economic disorder, which will show up in the streets and the voting booth, may be the remedy to elite dysfunction. On the other hand, we may have reached a point where elite consensus is no more likely than a popular consensus in a majority-minority society. Elite dysfunction may be a sign of a looming crackup of the old order.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

The Hive Mind

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One of the transcendent features of left-wing people, regardless of time and place, is their complete lack of self-awareness. The great blind spot for all left-wing people is the reflection in the mirror. They are incapable of seeing themselves other than as the hero in a great struggle. This story out of Canada about the correlation between Covid-loving and Putin-hating is a great example. The Left thinks it confirms their righteous hatred of their enemy, but it merely confirms their lack of self-awareness.

According to the story, “Unvaccinated Canadians are about 12 times more likely than those who received three doses to believe Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, according to a new survey by national polling firm EKOS.” Now, polling is a dodgy business, so this could be a fake poll designed to titillate the far-left. The fact that such a scenario is possible, however, is more proof of the general thesis about the far-left’s lack of self-awareness.

There are two ideas advanced in the coverage of this poll. One is that the unvaccinated are immoral, so it stands to reason that they support the evil Hitler guy.  The Left all over the West has been fixated on the vaccine as a moral signifier. They rushed to be the first to prove their piety within the Covid cult and they rushed to condemn the vaccine skeptics as ignorant hooligans. The Left would have embraced face tattoos for the vaccinated if it was an option.

That was something else that turned up in places with vaccine mandates. There was some suggestion that the unvaccinated be forced to wear armbands, but there were two problems with that plan. One is the obvious link to some unfortunate events that occurred in the last century. The other is the Left instinctively feared the armband would become a moral signifier for their enemies. The unvaccinated would use it to show they are the star-bellied sneetches of this age.

The other idea advanced in the story is the claim that the people who did not want the vaccine are now pushing “Russian disinformation” about the war. The whole disinformation meme has two aspects for the hive-minded. One is the moral claim, but the other is ignorance. You see, those who are not repeating the latest talking points from the hive leaders are stupid and ignorant, which is why they succumb to the  disinformation campaigns from the current devils.

Again, the poll and the media coverage have that just-so-story feel that is popular with the far-left, so skepticism is the right position here. The polling companies are extremely cynical, as befits people who make a living serving sociopaths. They are perfectly willing and able to feed nonsense to the true believers, because that is how they make a lot of money. The customer is always right and their customers are the weird identity cult that has gripped the managerial class. Here is an example.

“I saw it almost immediately, within days of the invasion, people supporting it and some quite stridently,” said Timothy Caulfield, a Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta who has studied the rise and spread of conspiracy theories. “It was pro-Russia, pro-Putin, it was the same kind of dogmatic language you heard from the anti-vaxxers about the alleged harms associated with vaccines. And it was almost immediate and it was from the same crowd.”

This is a guy who rushed to get the Ukraine lapel pin and immediately started saying “Keev” instead of “Kiev” while not being able to locate Ukraine on a map. One day, normal people are seeing their favorite news presenters discussing the latest pop stars and the next day those news presenters are part of a chorus singing the praises of a place called Ukraine. What we have seen from the managerial class over Ukraine is the definition of dogmatic.

Of course, this is that lack of self-awareness we expect from the Left. People engage in left-wing politics for the same reason they join UFO cults. They hate themselves so they look to swap their hated sense of self for the identity of a group. The primary driver is self-loathing. In the case of the managerial class, the perceived status that is awarded to the believer is an important bonus. The true believer loses herself in the identity of the group and gets likes from higher status people.

There is another factor to the appeal of this stuff. People attracted to left-wing politics tend to have disorderly minds and the simplicity of left-wing political framing provides needed structure. It is why it is not unusual to see a highly-credentialed left-wing person who is useless independently. They took to the structure of school, because they needed it. They did not learn anything they could apply on their own, because that was never the point of education for them.

Now as far as the unvaccinated, the unclean and the pro-Putin stuff, this is a lot like other bogeymen that have haunted the Left. Few people in the West are genuinely pro-Putin or pro-Russian with regards to the war in Ukraine. There are those prudently skeptical of the chanting from the usual suspects and those opposed to getting involved in the war. Some on-line are mocking the dogmatism of the Left with over-the-top, cartoonish Russia support.

This is reflected in the poll. Seventy percent of the unvaccinated were honest enough to say they do not have an opinion on Ukraine. Only five percent of the true believers offered no opinion. These are the same people who thought ornamental face gear scared away Covid spirits. They still think closing bars and restaurants magically prevents Covid. They are the people who believe what they are told and faithfully point and hiss at those who are not easily convinced.

Note that the poll compares the self-described unvaccinated with those who are maximally vaccinated. The fact that they left out the reluctantly vaccinated and the compulsory vaccinated is telling. Most likely those results did not fit the narrative the poll is intended to support. Most people took the vaccine out of necessity, their doctor recommended it or they hoped it would put the charade to an end. The genuinely enthusiastic for vaccines are a small subset of the population.

The reaction by the Left to the war in Ukraine is another reminder that it is impossible to constructively engage with true believers. Deeply religious people can usually understand why you do not share their faith. They are faithful, but they are not unaware of themselves. The Left is a different breed of believer. They do no seek salvation from the world. They seek salvation from themselves. This is why they obsess over the latest enemies of their cause. That is their salvation.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Realism and Ukraine

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Note: The Monday Taki post is up. I take up the same theme in the post today, but from a slightly different angle.  Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door and it is all about the big story.

America is a nation of moralizers, which is why every issue is cast as a fight between good guys and bad guys. This is something that goes to the very beginning of the country and it continues to define the culture. We saw this with Covid, where it quickly became a fight between those who worshipped Covid and those who were the villains for not obediently following government commands. We are seeing it with the war in Ukraine, where it is all good guys and bad guys.

Reality, of course, is not white hats versus black hats, at least not when it comes to relations between countries and people. The Charles de Gaulle quip that “No nation has friends only interests” reflects this reality. The moral thing to do in international affairs is that which serves the interests of the people. That will often conflict with what is seen as the right thing to do by some other nation. This is made clear in Ukraine, where Russia is waging a war in what they see as their vital interests.

If one needs to have a moral principle in this area, then it is that a moral government acts in the interests of its people. After all, the point of government, no matter the style of government, is to protect the collective interest of the society. For government to act outside the interest of the society means it is not a legitimate government. It is something imposed on an unwilling population. This is the argument against colonialism, no matter the practical benefits to the locals.

With that in mind we can assess the players in Ukraine. The Russian side is the easiest as Putin has been the most vocal in explaining his motives. The Russians see NATO, especially America, as an expansionist adversary. They are not wrong about this, at least with regards to the United States. The whole point of meddling in Ukraine has been to destabilize Russia. Washington views conquering Russian as unfinished business from the Cold War.

The Russians have had to lie back and take it since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but now they have decided to fight back. From their perspective, Ukraine is the line in the sand and they are acting from both the narrow interests of Russia, but also the historical reality of Eurasia. The Russians, in part, define themselves within the greater definition of Eurasia. Their role is to defend this region, which includes the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, who they see as brothers.

One can not like the results of this point of view and also respect it. War is an ugly business and it is a tragedy for the people in Ukraine. The Russians are not wrong, however, in how they view the situation. They see they have no choice and it is clear they are right about that. The West has done nothing to seek peace, instead opting to flood the area with weapons. It is a terrible thing, but the actions of Russia align with that old Charles de Gaulle maxim.

One the other side is Ukraine, which is a much more complicated thing as there is more than one player. There is the Zelensky government, which is largely the creation of Washington. Then you have the various nationalists groups. How much they have been supported by Washington is unknown. Then there are opposition groups that want Ukraine to follow the model of Belarus. They are characterized as pro-Russian, but they view themselves as the genuine Ukrainian nationalists.

The easy one to analyze is the Zelensky government. It is clear at this point that they have no interest in the people. They are in this for personal reasons. If they cared about the interest of Ukrainians, they never would have gone down this road. They certainly would not be telling Ukrainians to fight to the death, while they shoot videos for Western consumption in Poland. Instead, they would be ready to take the deal on offer, but that is not where their bread is buttered, so the war continues.

The ultranationalists, on the other hand, are the mirror of the Zelensky government, in that they are motivated by ideals. They have an image of a Ukrainian ethnostate modeled on Israel and Japan. This may be unrealistic or even insane, but they genuinely believe it is in the best interest of their people. The fact that they are being used by Washington as a disposable pawn on the international chessboard is a good reminder that the enemy of the national interests is naivety.

As an aside, this is the appeal to Western nationalists. Nationalism does not exist in the West as a practical matter. There are no nationalists parties, other than those wearing the idea as a fig leaf. Victor Orban is popular with the American Right because he is seen as something that has not existed in American politics for a century. In Western Europe, genuine nationalism is forbidden. This makes the Ukrainian nationalists seem like heroes, despite the disastrous results on the ground.

Finally, we have America, which is the world’s great meddler. The Biden administration could end the war tomorrow, but their real supporters see a profit in prolonging the conflict so that is the plan. This means a decline in the standard of living for Americans and possibly worse. They have repeatedly said that your suffering is the price they are willing to pay for whatever it is they are doing. The interests of Americans count for no more than the lives of Ukrainians.

Of all the players in this war, it is Washington that is the furthest away from the standard implied by Charles de Gaulle quip. There are no American interests in Ukraine and the American people are not benefitting from the war. In fact, Washington is much like the Zelensky government, in that they are acting from narrow self-interest. It was not so long ago when it was revealed that the Biden family had been taking bribes from the Ukrainians going back to the Obama years.

The best one can say about the Washington position is they are demanding you and your family suffer in defense of the abstract principles of liberal democracy. Maybe you can fashion an argument that says they are acting from the interest of the Global American Empire, which benefits some residents of North America. Many nationalists have drawn a parallel between this view and the and Eurasianism while condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine.

The problem with that approach is it puts the self-proclaimed Western nationalists on the side of the Global American Empire and the EU, entities that are explicitly anti-nationalists and arguably anti-Western. This quickly looks like a suicide pact in favor of maintaining intellectual purity in the face of reality. It is a reminder that intellectual purity can be as self-defeating as moral purity when it comes to reality. No man should put his ideals ahead of the life of his people.

In the end we are where history always leads us. There are no good guys or bad guys, no grand morality tale to frame the future. Ukraine is about the nature of great powers, fading empires and the decline of the West under American leadership. War is the violent transition from one scene of history to the next. What must matter to the genuine nationalist is what is best for his people, even if it means being flexible on those noble ideas that are so inspiring in the abstract.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Guinness Hates Democracy

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One of the interesting things about politics is that people suspend their normal understanding of the world when the topic shifts to politics. It is as if we have a separate brain that is only used for discussing current events. In our daily lives, our normal brain does the thinking and evaluating for us. It assesses people and decisions by weighing the facts against past practice. When the topic shifts to politics, the normal brain shuts down and the political brain fires up.

The easy example is the people in politics. Normal brain would never take advice from a stranger with no qualifications. If someone you do not know knocks on your door offering advice, you close the door, maybe call the cops. On the other hand, if that guy says he is running for office and wants to tell you what is best for your community, you take the time to listen. The guy could be naked, but if he is clearly talking politics, well, let us hear what naked guy has to say.

Few people in office are qualified for any job in the real world. The closest any of them come to real work is the law. More often than not, their legal experience was brief, just enough to get them some connections so they could run for office or maybe catch on at a government agency to network. There are a few flim-flam men from Wall Street who end up in politics, but banking is to work what tarot card reading is to science. For most, the only thing they have done is politics.

Political brain finds this perfectly normal. Normal brain, however, would pop out of our skull and run away before allowing the crazy guy in shipping to tell the accounting department how to close the month. Normal brain would never allow the guys in sales to tell production what to make next month. Normal brain expects the decisions to be made by people who are experienced and qualified. Even then, normal brain likes to see some proof before making a decision.

This is most obvious in the consensus building. In every meeting in our work life, normal brain is there reminding us that most of the people in the room are morons whose opinion should be ignored. Most of the room is people who are just going to say something so the boss notices them and thinks they are participating. Normal brain knows that most decisions, thankfully, are not made by committee, because normal brain knows all of us are dumber than most of us.

Political brain, on the other hand, takes the opposite view. Political brains says that we have to all come together and reach a consensus. We have to have long debates where everyone gets to make their voice heard. You cannot leave decisions to just one person as that is not how democracy works. No matter how many times the search for consensus results in the wrong answer, political brain insists that a room full of stupid people will find the right answer.

There is very little about politics, especially democratic politics, which makes any sense to our normal brain. In any other context, normal brain would recoil in horror at what political brain considers rational. It is, however, our political brain that tells us to trust unqualified and unscrupulous strangers. It is our political brain that tells us to give that weirdo a chance to speak. On the other hand, it is our normal brain that has to live with the consequences of what political brain has done.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











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This Week’s Show

Contents

  • Soccer
  • Politics
  • Cows
  • Democracy

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Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

The False Society

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Imagine you are the head of a grocery chain and one of your executives comes to you with a plan to boost sales of over-the-counter remedies. These are the things you buy for a sore throat or an upset stomach. His plan involves subtly infecting the customers with a mild virus. They will get sick and then come back to buy something to remedy the symptoms of the virus. The virus will be mild, but enough to cause most people some symptoms in the week after having been infected.

Unless you are a sociopath, you will think the guy is nuts. Odds are you will think it is some sort of elaborate gag. If he is serious, then you will call security to have the guy removed from the building. The reason is not just the ghoulish plan to poison people, but the fact that he could think of such a thing. You would quickly start to wonder what else this guy is capable of doing. If he is willing to poison thousands of people to boost sales, he is capable of anything.

The truth is though, companies are full of people who think like the ghoulish executive in that short example. For example, there was someone at the multinational that owns the Häagen-Dazs brand who decided to start shrinking the pint. It used to be that a pint is a pound the world around, but no more. A pint of ice cream in the United States has shrunk down to 14-ounces. The container has been subtly changed so the shrinkage is not as obvious to the consumer.

Shrinkflation has been a thing for a couple of decades now. Bottles of beer have started to shrink as well. Many are 11-ounces now. They changed the shape of the bottle to trick the consumer. This was a trick they started at ballgames. They made cups taller, but narrower, so they could call the regular sized beverage a large, when it was the same amount of fluid as the smaller size. Packaging science is now mostly about tricking the consumer into thinking less is more.

The marketplace has always been about deception. The seller is motivated to lie about his product and the consumer is motivated to lie about his interest. Since the dawn of the marketplace, authorities have promulgated rules in an effort to keep the lying to a minimum and therefore maintain a peaceful market. Those rules have fallen away in the modern age, where deception has now become a virtue. In this age, only suckers are honest in their dealings.

Mass media is the prime example. The big media operations publish stories that they know are false when they post them. They are not simply wrong about a few facts, but deliberately designed by a staff of people to tell a false story. We saw that with the Russian collusion hoax in the Trump years. The Post and Times had teams whose job was to make up fake stories, with the help of friends in government. Everyone involved volunteered for the job of deceiving the public.

We see this with the war coverage. This story is being pushed by the Drudge alternative called Revolver News. It looks very official, but a quick search of the three authors reveals they are Ukrainian activists sponsored by the usual suspects. All three are children, fresh from school, with no experience in this area. The people behind that institute had them do the copy editing and let them put their name on it in order to add to their resume. It is a common fraud in Washington.

That is the thing though. It is a swindle and a well-known one. Operations like “Institute for the Study of War” are just lie machines. Their task is to pump out regime friendly information that will get circulated by the media. The media, of course, knows this better than anyone, but they choose to pass it along anyway. Given what we saw in the Trump years, it is possible that the Washington Post put out an RFP for a fake study to fit the latest narrative on the war.

Joseph de Maistre famously said, “False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.” This is true, in that the authorities in this age pump out false opinion in immeasurable volume. Normal people inevitably believe some of it and pass it onto friends. That gives it authority and before long a third of the public wants nuclear war over Ukraine.

Of course, that survey could be entirely fake. That is something else that has changed over the last several decades. It used to be that polling firms guarded their reputations by avoiding sensationalism. Now they only care about getting noticed, so we have polling firms publishing complete nonsense. Many are happy to give the customer what they want and those customers are sociopaths in the media. Polling is just a corrupt as everything else now.

If we return to our grocery store CEO and his psychopathic executive, the issue is not the scheme, but the person behind it. The sort of person who thinks it is normal to poison people is not going to think twice about poisoning his boss. Similarly, the sorts of people who think it is normal to fabricate studies, stories and so on in order to fool the general public is no different from the psychopathic executive. These are people who lack the ability to tell right from wrong.

It is tempting to think this is just the way the world is and we just see it more clearly now thanks to the mass media age. Some of that is true, but we also know that this sort of behavior was a primary concern in the past. Medieval governments passed rules to limit deception in the law and the marketplace. The ancients had draconian punishments for those who deceived the public. The ancient Persians treated deception more harshly than murder. People used to worry about this problem.

In this age, we have turned this on its head. Deception is a valued skill. The media selects for sociopathy. Our political parties admire those with a natural skill to deceive and quickly raise them to national status. That grocery store CEO would not exist as described, because he would have hand-picked that executive and probably gave him the idea for the mass poisoning campaign. The lie is the coin of the realm and the liars are the new aristocracy.

America is often called a great experiment and that is true. This is the first society to exist with nothing holding it together but impersonal economic relations. We are reaching the point where there are no rules, just who can get over on whom. It is the anarcho-capitalist society in which no one can trust anyone or anything. Instead, a war of all against all, it is an endless series of confidence games. Everyone has an angle and is trying to get over on someone else.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Future Shock

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Way back in the last century, futurism was a thing that serious people followed because America was still an optimistic country. The 1970’s promised to end that but the revival in the 1980’s brought it back in vogue. The microprocessor revolution was mostly responsible, but the subsequent end to the Cold War also helped. One of the chief gurus of futurism in the last three decades of the 20th century was a man named Alvin Toffler, who wrote a number of bestselling books.

Alvin Toffler has mostly been forgotten now, but he was a big deal from the 1970’s into the new century. His two big books were Future Shock and Third Wave, in which he described how the world was changing due to a number of forces, one of which was the technological revolution that was in its infancy at the time. Toffler wound up consulting with global leaders like Chinese premiere Zhao Ziyang, Michael Gorbachev, Newt Gingrich and various corporate leaders.

Toffler was credited with an idea that the next phase of civilization would be characterized by the pace of change. That is, the people would not only have to adapt to a changing society, but also adapt to a society that was under constant change at a rate that may exceed our ability to keep pace. Technology would advance so quickly that we would not have time to create new habits for the new rules. Instead, we would become corks on a raging river of change.

One of the keys to futurism is to never get too specific about the future, especially the future you expect to see. That way, no one can compare your prediction with what actually happened. Toffler was careful to not get too specific as to what life would be like in a world where the rules changed too quickly for people to adapt. Instead, he imagined a world where some people would be better at coping with constant change and others would struggle, thus creating a new status system.

To some degree this has proven to be true. You see this in the work place where the people rising to the top give off the aura of being infinitely flexible and adaptive, while the people lagging behind end up in accounting. Whether the “highly adaptive” are really adapting to change or striking the needed pose is debatable, but it is something that has become a thing in the corporate world. The highly adaptive are always wise to never ask why something is changing. They just accept it.

In society as a whole, the jury is out. The last decade has been a good test of this new reality and the results are mixed. Obama unleashed a race war in the last two years of his administration that no one saw coming. Then we had the drama of both party primaries in the 2016 elections. No one saw that coming. Trump winning the nomination and then the presidency was a total shock. Then it was four years of chaos and the insane response to the Covid pandemic.

Trump seems like a lifetime ago, yet it has only been a little over a year since he was deposed and replaced with Joe Biden. Five years ago, no sane person thought Joe Biden would ever be president. No one saw the economic chaos that is now starting to define our lives either. We are just scratching the surface on the economic front, as there are a lot of chickens coming home to roost. We are seeing things that not so long ago were declared impossible by the smart set.

There are two conclusions that you can draw from the last decade. One is the public has been remarkably resilient. The middle-class has taken one body blow after another, but has staggered on, not doing much to update its view of society or the people who run the country. This fall, they will dutifully vote for the B-team, who promise to do more of the same, just with better looking performers. The Middle American Radicals remain safely in their pods, munching on their bugs.

The other conclusion is we cannot predict what is coming next. Most people wisely assumed that tomorrow will look like today, with more of the stuff that is popular and less of the stuff that is not so popular. Now, the wise people have to assume that whatever comes next is not being discussed today. If you want to know the future, find a fringe weirdo making crazy claims. Every notable thing that has happened over the last decade was considered aluminum foil hat stuff.

This may be why the Middle American Radicals have been so docile. People need to time to get angry at their rulers and they need something onto which to focus their attention as the main issue. By the time the rulers were willing to tackle inflation in the 1970’s, the people had suffered with it for years. They had time to digest it, understand it and make specific demands about the economy. Reagan won in 1980 largely due to his ability to repeat those demands.

In this age, no one has time to focus on anything very long. We just spent two years having our rights trampled with Covid and it is now on its way to being a conspiracy theory because the new issue is Ukraine. The rage heads on the Left are still struggling to figure out why no one cares about the study of extremism, but that issue was replaced with Covid, which is now being replaced with Putin. Things change so quickly that even the rage heads have no time to get angry.

Of course, the people behind the constant change are living the life of momentary advantage, where they profit from every turn of the wheel. The great transfer of wealth from the middle-class to the over-class is one result. The consolidation of power into the hands of a narrowing elite is another. The new world of constant change is one where the elite can front-run what comes next because they are driving it. Everyone else is left to guess, which means a life of perpetual chaos.

The question no one asks is whether this is sustainable. The consolidation of power may not be by design, but a necessity. At least it is an evolutionary reaction to the accelerating pace of change and uncertainty. Logically, what comes next is some sort of administrative coup where Biden is replaced by the managerial elite. Will that cause a revolt or will it be welcomed? Probably the latter, given what is happening, but maybe that is the point at which the dam breaks.

That is the thing about the world of constant change. No one has time to plan as the rules keep changing. This is especially true of that narrowing ruling elite. They need to keep flipping the pages faster in order to maintain their status, so they can do no long-term planning. Rule by expediency has a history and it is not a promising one, which means it does not have a promising future. The disaster in Ukraine is one example of living in the moment can end in disaster.

What the futurist always get right is that the present modes are running their course and new modes are on the horizon. What they get wrong is that those new modes also come with an expiry date. We may be seeing that with the world Toffler imagined back in the last century. The accelerating pace of change is reaching an end, because mankind can only tolerate so much change. The question is whether it ends in fire or ice, which the poet said would both suffice.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

The Test Of Reality

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Last week, the current president of Ukraine thanked Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for his role in helping him win the propaganda war. Facebook lifted its ban on praising the various neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine. Then it announced it would allow calls for violence against individual Russians. In the world of infinitely malleable ethics, this is what Silicon Valley now calls a principled stand. Ukraine supporters are proud of their work on social media wining the meme war with Russia.

In the real world, the Russian army is slowly turning Ukraine into the world’s largest mound of rubble. In the Donbass, they have the Ukrainian army and the tens of thousands of militia members surrounded. It is not easy to get reliable information about what is happening on the ground, but reliable estimates say fifty thousand pro-Ukrainian fighters are now trapped in the Donbass “cauldron.” Barring a peace deal, they will be vaporized over the next couple of weeks.

In the south, the Russian army has created a corridor to the Crimea. This was a primary objective of the invasion. Mariupol, a city in southeastern Ukraine, lies along the estuary of the Kalmius and Kalchik rivers near the Sea of Azov. This city has been surrounded and cutoff by the Russian army. The Ukrainian army based there has been given the chance to surrender, but the irregulars will be given no quarter. It is a preview of what will happen in the Donbass over the next month.

The point here is that despite losing the social media war, the Russians are winning the actual war in Ukraine. It has been slow going as the Russians do not wage television friendly wars, so no cool video. Ukraine was slowly being turned into a fortified outpost by Washington, so the Ukrainian army is well trained and supplied. Digging them out of those fortification will not be easy, but it is inevitable. The Russians will turn Ukraine into rubble if that is what it takes to achieve their objective.

What this war has revealed is a clash of realties. On the Washington side, reality is played out on TV chat shows, office politics and the internet. They really think winning the public relations campaign matters. In the reality in which Western leaders live, words count for everything. Facts are just tools to be used to decorate a clever argument or a novel public relations campaign. From the perspective of the West, the war has been a disaster for Russia.

On the other side, the Russians operate in a different reality. They are focused on securing their border, which means neutralizing Ukraine. They have prepared for the economic consequences. They have prepared their people, who seem to be overwhelming supportive of the effort. Westerners have described Putin as having a medieval mindset, which may be true, but he is dealing with a people and a reality that still thinks the old way about the world.

Ukraine is now caught between two realities. The one reality is what Samuel Huntington labeled the Orthodox civilization. This is Eurasia. On the other side is what he called the Western civilization. According to Huntington, the future will be shaped by the clash of the civilizations he outlined in his book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. What we are seeing in Ukraine is a collision between these great tectonic plates that define conflicting realities.

Of course, the quarter century crusade against Islam by the Global American Empire was a similar clash of civilizations. Huntington called that area the Islamic civilization for obvious reasons. It is what is commonly referred to as MENA, which stands for Middle East and North Africa. America tried to impose its reality on the Islamic world and the result was chaos. Every country in the region, except Israel and Iran, is in worse shape now than when the crusade was launched.

In many respects, what we are witnessing is the test of two competing post-Cold War theories of the future. One is the Huntington theory and the other is the Francis Fukuyama theory, laid out in his book The End of History and the Last Man. In it he argued that mankind had reached the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the triumph of Western liberal democracy. There was nothing left to discuss, as liberal democracy was the winner of the ideological contest.

By any measure, Fukuyama’s theory is proving to be all wrong, while Huntington’s theory is looking prophetic. We are now in the midst of a second great civilizational conflict where the reality of the West is crashing onto the reality of another civilization, in this case Eurasia. The reality of the West, social media campaigns and glib responses at press conferences, is proving no match for artillery and armor, at least not in the part of the world controlled by the Orthodox civilization.

On the horizon is the certain collision between what Huntington called the Sinic civilization (China) and the West. East Asia is a bit more complicated as there are a many old rivalries in that region. Huntington diced the region into various subgroups like Buddhists, Hindus and the Japanese. Even so, China will make a play to recover what she considers to be her lost province, Taiwan. As we see in Ukraine, this will be a clash between the reality of the West and the reality of China.

Lost in all of this is whether the reality of the Global American Empire can survive these clashes with alternative realities. Prudence said that the empire should respect the perspective of Russian with regards to these areas along her border. Prudence said that the Muslim world should be left to sort itself. Western liberal democracy was incompatible with Islamic culture. Despite all of this, Washington continues to operate in its own reality where words can conquer culture.

What we may be seeing is not only the clash of civilizations, but the great test of the underlying sense of reality that animates Western elites. Can they survive in a world in which they need to impose their reality on the rest of the world, but the rest of the world will not accept it? Either the West comes to terms with the fact that the rest of the world will continue to operate by its own logic or it will destroy itself in civilizational wars to impose its reality on the reality of alien civilizations.

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

sa***@mi*********************.com











.

Spartan Thoughts

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Note: The Monday Taki post is up. I take up the same theme in the post today, but from a slightly different angle.  Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door and it is all about the big story.

Early in the Ukraine war, there were reports about the death of Vladimir Zhoga, a Russian commander in the Donbass. Later they reported that Ukrainian defense forces killed Russian Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky in combat. In both cases, it was widely reported that these men led units called “Spartan” divisions. Another high profile Russian commander was killed later in the week and he was also linked to the mysterious “Spartan” division.

Typical of the American media, the reports were mostly copy supplied by the State Department, filled in with fantasy from the media. Zhoga was a separatist leader, not a member of the Russian military. His unit was called the Sparta battalion. The others were Russian military, but they were not Spartans. What is interesting about this is the fact that the State Department focused on the word “Sparta” in their copy. Oddly, Sparta looms large in the imagination of the foreign policy elite.

It is a weird aspect of the present age that a society that fashions itself as the new Athens has a Sparta complex. College sports teams have long used the Spartan image and the name itself. Fantasy writers and video game creators like the image of the heroic and stoic Spartans. There have been books and movies about Thermopylae, all focused on what is considered the greatest last stand in history. There is something compelling about Sparta for modern Americans.

The fact is though, America is modeled on Athens, the great antagonist of the Spartans and the loser of the Peloponnesian War. In the mythology of America, the Spartan side is wearing the black hat. They are the great danger, the thing against which democracy organizes against. Modern politicians do not go around talking about the things we associate with Sparta, but rather the things we associate with Athens. They are fixated on our democracy and our freedom.

Despite this, Hollywood has not seen fit to product movies that celebrate Pericles or even Marathon. The reason we know about Thermopylae is it makes for a compelling story, but it was not particularly significant militarily. The truth is it was Athenian tactical brilliance and determination that beat back the Persian hordes. The Spartans never showed up for the battle of Marathon, where the heavily outnumbered Athenians defeated the Persians in 490 BC.

The closest we get in popular culture to celebrating Athens over Sparta is in the old Westerns from the golden age of Hollywood. A regular feature of these films was the conflict between civilization and the frontier culture. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, we get the relationship between Wayne, the Spartan man of honor, and Stewart, the Athenian man of words. The two men are locked in a fight with a violent criminal who represents the disorder of the frontier.

Even in the Westerns, it is never clear who is the good side of the relationship and who is the bad side of it. Back then the audience was more sophisticated so they could appreciate the ambiguity. There was an understanding that it took a combination of those two sides of man in order to make society possible. You needed the stoic warrior who lived by a code. You also needed the man of rules and words to supply the structure of a society so people can live.

In those old Westerns, it is not an accident that the big star, often John Wayne, would be given the role as the stoic gunfighter. The filmmakers knew that deep in the soul of every man is the desire to be the stoic man of honor, the guy who uses force to impose order on the world. Even if the task required the sacrifice of the man himself, the clarity was superior to a life of ambiguity. At the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Jimmy Stewart seems to acknowledge this truth.

This is why the Ukrainians have been cast as brave and honorable defenders of their country and culture. The fact that the people writing this narrative have spent the last generation telling us that there is no such thing as countries or cultures speaks to the power of this old Spartan image. The honor of the Russians is never mentioned, because in this story they are the Persians. They are an alien, inhuman force that exists to test the resolve of humanity and society.

Of course, in the larger narrative that animates the Global American Empire, the Russians are the Spartans, the bad guys in the drama. America is the new Athens, the city on the hill, a light to all nations. The State Department is now flooding Europe with weapons in order to defend civilization from the barbarian horde. They hope to turn the Ukraine into Afghanistan. They will make those people pay any price, bear any burden, in order to play out this fantasy.

You cannot help but wonder if what drives the neoconservatives who run the foreign policy of the Global American Empire is envy. Violence is completely alien to them, as they have spent their lives in the academy. They have never even been in a confrontation in which something they value is on the line. From a distance, they admire the people who they relentlessly attack. Perhaps under it all is the insecurity of men who have never tried to live as men.

Regardless, it is one of the least appreciated aspects of the current age. The long shadow of the Peloponnesian War is still with us. The world now stands closer to nuclear annihilation than it has since the Cuban missile crisis and it is because the people running the Global American Empire are haunted by a conflict within the soul of the West that dates to the birth of the West. The inability to square these two aspects of Western man is what could destroy him.

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