SPONSOR

Vaulted Invest in Gold

Visit this blog’s sponsor. Vaulted is an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold: Kunstler.com/vaulted


 

Support JHK on Patreon

 

If you’re interested in supporting this blog, check out the Patreon page or Substack.
 
Get This blog by email:

Attention Movie Producers!
JHK’s screenplay in hard-copy edition

Click to order!

A Too-Big-To-Fail Bankster…
Three Teenagers who bring him down…
Gothic doings on a Connecticut Estate.
High velocity drama!


Now Live on Amazon

“Simply the best novel of the 1960s”


Now in Paperback !
Only Seven Bucks!
JHK’s Three-Act Play
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…


Long Emergency Cafe Press ad 2

Get your Official JHK swag on Cafe Press


The fourth and final book of the World Made By Hand series.

Harrow_cover_final

Battenkill Books (autographed by the Author) |  Northshire Books Amazon


emb of Riches Thumbnail

JHK’s lost classic now reprinted as an e-book
Kindle edition only


 

Clusterfuck Nation
For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page


And so the Democratic Party has gone and hoisted the flag of “socialism” on the mizzenmast of its foundering hulk as it sets sail for the edge of the world. Bad call by a ship without a captain, and I’ll tell you why. Socialism was the response to a particular set of circumstances in time that drove the rise of industrial societies. Those circumstances are going, going, gone.

The suspicion of industry’s dreadful effects on the human condition first sparked in the public imagination with William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem” in 1804 and its reference to England’s newly-built “dark satanic mills.” Industry at the grand scale overturned everyday life in the Euro-American “West” by the mid-19th century, and introduced a new kind of squalor for the masses, arguably worse than their former status as peasants.

And thus it was to be, through Karl Marx, Vlad Lenin, and the rest of the gang, ever-strategizing to somehow mitigate all that suffering. Their Big Idea was that if government owned the industry (the means of production), then the riches would be distributed equally among the laboring masses and the squalor eliminated. You can’t blame them for trying, though you can blame them for killing scores of millions of people who somehow got in the way of their plans.

Nobody had ever seen anything like this industry before, or had to figure out some way to deal with it, and it was such an enormous force in everyday life thereafter that it shattered human relationships with nature and the planet nature rode in on. Of course, the history of everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and we’re closer to the end of the industrial story than we are to the middle.

Which opens the door to a great quandary. If industrial society is disintegrating (literally), then what takes its place? Many suppose that it is a robotic utopia powered by some as-yet-unharnessed cosmic juice, a nirvana of algorithms, culminating in orgasm-without-end (Ray Kurzweil’s transhumanism). Personally, I would check the “no” box on that outcome as a likely scenario.

The self-proclaimed socialists are actually seeing the world through a rear-view mirror. What they are really talking about is divvying up the previously-accumulated wealth, soon to be bygone. Entropy is having its wicked way with that wealth, first by transmogrifying it into ever more abstract forms, and then by dissipating it as waste all over the planet. In short, the next time socialism is enlisted as a tool for redistributing wealth, we will make the unhappy discovery that most of that wealth is gone.

The process will be uncomfortably sharp and disorientating. The West especially will not know what hit it as it emergently self-reorganizes back into something that resembles the old-time feudalism.  We have a new kind of mass squalor in America: a great many people who have nothing to do, no means of support, and the flimsiest notions of purpose in life. The socialists have no answers for them. They will not be “retrained” in some imagined federal crusade to turn meth freaks into code-writers for Google.

Something the analysts are calling “recession” is ploughing across the landscape like one of those darkly majestic dust-storms of the 1930s, only this time we won’t be able to re-fight anything like World War Two to get all the machines running again in the aftermath. Nor, of course, will the Make America Great Again fantasy work out for those waiting in the squalid ruins of the post-industrial rust-belt or the strip-mall wastelands of the Sunbelt.

Most of the beliefs and attitudes of the present day will be overturned with the demise of the industrial orgy, like the idea that humanity follows an unerring arc of progress, that men and women are interchangeable and can do exactly the same work, that society should not be hierarchical, that technology will rescue us, and that we can organize some political work-arounds to avoid the pain of universal contraction.

There are no coherent ideas in the political arena just now. Our prospects are really too alarming. So, jump on-board the socialism ship and see if it makes you feel better to sail to the end of the earth. But mind the gap at the very edge. It’s a doozie.


This blog is sponsored this week by McAlvany ICA. To learn more visit: https://icagoldcompany.com/


Just Out! Previously Unpublished!
From the Jeff Greenaway Series

At Ponsonby Hall, a new Hampshire prep school for screw-ups, things are far from all right.
“Audaciously hilarious”
$7.00 — Cheap! Buy!
(Read Excerpt)

 

Something Strange is going on at Camp Timahoe in Lost Indian, Vermont, summer of 1962.
Rollicking fun
$7.50 — Cheap! Buy!
(Read Excerpt)

New Paintings by JHK 2016 — 2017


Great Winter Reading… JHK’s Hippie Novel!

“Simply the best novel about the 1960s.”

Read the first chapter here (click) on Patreon
Buy the book at Amazon or click on the cover below
or get autographed copies from Battenkill Books


Now in Paperback !
Only Seven Bucks!

JHK’s Three-Act Play
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…


Other Books by JHK
The World Made By Hand Series:

Book 1:
World Made by Hand
Book 2:
The Witch of Hebron
Buy World Made By Hand Signed and local from Battenkill BooksBuy World Made By Hand on AmazonBuy World Made By Hand at Northshire Books Buy The Witch of Hebron signed and local from Battenkill BooksBuy The Witch of Hebron on AmazonBuy The Witch of Hebron at Northshire Books
Book 3:
A History of the Future
Book 4:
Harrows of Spring
Signed and local from Battenkill BooksAvailable on AmazonAvailable at Northshire Books Signed and local from Battenkill BooksAvailable on AmazonAvailable at Northshire Books
Geography of Nowhere The Long Emergency
Available on Kindle Buy The Long Emergency signed and local from Battenkill BooksBuy The Long Emergency on AmazonBuy The Long Emergency at Northshire Books

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page


This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted


Order now! Jim’s new book
About the tribulations of growing up

Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books

Order from Amazon

Order from Barnes and Noble

Order now! Jim’s other new book
A selection of best blogs 2017 to now!

Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books

Order from Amazon

Order from Troy Bookmakers


Paintings from the 2023 Season
New Gallery 15


GET THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL PROVIDED BY SUBSTACK

You can receive Clusterfuck Nation posts in your email when you subscribe to this blog via Substack. Financial support is voluntary.

Sign up for emails via https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com


About James Howard Kunstler

View all posts by James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

1,098 Responses to “Mistaken Futures”

  1. EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 9:54 am #

    Just wondering…

    Is Social Security socialism?

    Is Medicare?

    What are all the social agencies of Gov’t that provide for and protect the welfare of society?

    Is corporate socialism different in some way such that it sidesteps all the alleged evils of whatever “socialism” is?

    • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 9:57 am #

      Social Security is taking the money that I earned and promising to give it back once I am too old and worn out to earn any more, or at least as much. It is not taking everybody’s money and divvying it up equally around the population. THAT would be socialism. Social security is an insurance policy that we buy and damned well better be able to collect on once the terms are met. Period!

      • Being There February 11, 2019 at 10:08 am #

        Walter you better f’n believe that and they collected our Earned Income Retirement Insurance we paid for in each and every paycheck and/or 1099 we ever paid for +40 yrs of our lives.
        The Kochs and Lloyd Blankfein want to lie about that and call it “entitlement” to fool people.
        They say it’s “popular” but no…..its survival life and death for millions.

        One day a few years ago I saw a newsclip that ran by mistake and saw Blanfein of Goldman Sachs leave his office building downtown NYC. A gaggle of reporters and cameramen followed him.
        He turned around and said
        “The American people are going to have to learn to live without their “Entitlements”.
        He then turned on his heel and kept working while the press called out questions he refused to answer.

        That’s what the billionaire class wants….unlimited money and a looting operation on every Public Sector in the world in every country.
        Tax collection is the new resource.

        • Mountain gal February 11, 2019 at 10:16 am #

          Many of us will be depending on “entitlements” such as Social Security for the lions share of our income. For many it will be their entire income. By definition this benefit goes to those who have worked for many years and paid into the system. As someone who was self-employed for many years when I was farming, I had to pay 15.3%; the employer and the employee share. You better believe I plan on collecting to support myself in my old age.

          • shotho February 11, 2019 at 10:22 am #

            But what happens if the government is no longer able to pay those benefits because it is bankrupt; which by the way I believe a point that we have already reached, but don’t realize it yet because of the machinations of the Federal Reserve? There will be a point in the near future when that unpleasant reality will have to be faced. At that point, the essay today is on point. The devastation we have wrought on nature and human character will come into contact with reality. History won’t stop, but only the strong, clever and wise will thrive.

          • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 10:34 am #

            Mountain gal, my kindred spirit! I too paid a lion’s share and both sides of my SS deposits when I ran my own engineering firm for 15 years. Those years were my prime earning years, and just like you, had to pay both sides of the bill. Of course, even if an employer has to pay the other share, it is NOT government money, it is money that they could have paid US instead.

            And shotho, what should we do if and when the government can no longer make it’s payments on their end of the deal? What do they do when we cannot make payment? Take our homes, incarcerate us? THAT is what we need to do when they default on us, take their shit, lock THEM up.

          • elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 12:04 pm #

            “History won’t stop, but only the strong, clever and wise will thrive.”

            Shotho,
            Then you, by extension, assume that the strong clever and wise got rich through their abilities?

            Do not discount luck for wealth or survival.

            “I owe my success to a few words my father whispered to me upon my graduation from Harvard…take this million and don’t lose it….”

          • AKlein February 11, 2019 at 12:25 pm #

            Mountain gal, here’s something to reflect upon. Imagine being one of those poor souls in the USSR on Christmas Day 1991. You wake up, only to find that the past 70+ years of Communism was a kind of fraud. Millions had their lives cut short, millions worked themselves into the grave, all for the greatness of Communism. So you wake up and ask, what happened? The response – oh, just forget about that – we have a new scheme now. All those promises made, well, they’re just in the past.

          • Anon1970 February 11, 2019 at 1:59 pm #

            Over time, I expect Social Security to evolve into a program that mainly benefits the poor. More affluent retirees will see much of their benefits taxed away and then further reduced by Medicare premium surcharges. The income levels at which benefits become taxable has not been adjusted since such benefits first became taxable in 1984. But the percentage of the benefit subject to income tax did increase from 50% to as much as 85% almost a decade later.

            The income levels at which Medicare premium surcharges kick in have not been increased since they were first introduced in 2007, while the surcharge schedule has become more onerous for more seniors. A few more bursts of inflation will make a lot more seniors subject to the premium surcharges.

            If the country’s financial picture really turns ugly, don’t be surprised if the US constitution is tossed onto the scrap heap of history. That’s what happened in 1933 in Germany. But the promoters of Holocaust remembrance never seem to make the connection between the collapse of the German mark (and the value of Germans’ savings) in 1923, the spike in German unemployment in 1931 and 1932 and the opening of the country’s first concentration camp in 1933. Perhaps they ought to read or re-read the first few chapters of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, which William Shirer wrote when the US was at the peak of its power and influence in the world and deficits did matter, at least to President Eisenhower.

          • SpeedyBB February 11, 2019 at 3:25 pm #

            AKlein, you bring to mind an ancient (pre-paywall) Dmitry Orlov commentary, comparing (as usual) the collapse of the USSR with our own coming spectacle.

            As I recall the thrust of his exposition was that the average Russian family unit, with its modest victory garden, animals living in the back of the house, hand-cranked water pump and other basic amenities, was better prepared for the upheaval than what our esteemed host terms this contemporary ‘happy-motoring’ society, wherever practically no one under 85 has any practical day-to-day survival skills.

        • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 10:22 am #

          There just aren’t that many people in the ‘Billionaire Class’, BT. ‘What they want’ is really inconsequential. I dare say you could confiscate every single dollar from every billionaire and it wouldn’t make much of a difference in anything.

          Incidentally, nice to hear from you.

          Brh

          • Being There February 11, 2019 at 10:31 am #

            You aren’t understanding my point. I care about the idea that they are using the public sector to wet their beaks cninually in this system of reverse engineered socialism for their own pockets. Everything Public is going to privateers.
            It isn’t just about taxing the rich to where they were in the ’60s, but its about not allowing them to take from the tax-payers.
            Again. Globalism isn’t just about free trade, its a mechanism for looting the public sectors of all countries for the few.
            That’s what you need to understand.
            In 2011 Mueller gave a speech. In it he described the new challenges of fighting crime and said that Globalism allowed for what he described as the Iron Triangle. He said it involves entities from organized crime, CEOs and Govt.
            To that effect I found 3 articles describing the corrupt leadership of Malaysia who allowed Goldman Sachs, and then in another article described a different leader in Malaysia paying Chris Christie and Trump lawyers with tax-payer money set aside for infrastructure……
            GET IT?

          • Being There February 11, 2019 at 10:32 am #

            oh PS….thanks…I do check this blog out every so often.

        • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 10:32 am #

          $5000 a year for 40 years. That’s $200 K. You could collect a million $ if you live to be a 100 years old. Or you could leave all that on the table if you are dead before you’re 60 years old. But, and this is the big hairy butt, if you pay in you will not as an elderly person be on the street and homeless. That is what makes America great. In the past your family made sure you didn’t wind up on an ice float. In many cases that is not true anymore. Not in all, but in many.

          • stretch23 February 11, 2019 at 1:56 pm #

            that would be an “ice floe”

          • Anon1970 February 11, 2019 at 2:08 pm #

            In some parts of the US, average monthly Social Security benefits would not even be enough to pay the rent for a market rate apartment.

      • TPTB-USA February 11, 2019 at 10:47 am #

        Walter, you better get your mind wrapped around the concept that the fund has been robbed, and the money spent.

        Who do you expect to collect from?

        • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 11:09 am #

          If there is no cash, we can always take it out of their hides!

          • Being There February 11, 2019 at 11:35 am #

            They always have money for war and the private contractors who profit from it…..so saying there’s no money…..get printing Rumpelstiltskin.
            You let the looters in, replace what you stole. We are constantly paying into and it better be there as long as the country still exists in whatever form.

          • montsegur February 11, 2019 at 11:48 am #

            Hello, Walter.

            In the context of the Long Emergency, I suspect any “taking it out of their hides” will only occur with a few of the local yokel bigshots who didn’t get out of Dodge quickly enough. And once that fleeting phase has passed, I suspect that Jim’s vision of a reborn, brutal feudalism will emerge. At that point, the bosses might be new, but they certainly won’t be more enlightened in their outlook than those who beat feet or ended up swinging on a rope. My two cents in any case.

            Cheers

          • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 1:35 pm #

            That’s a good point monte, they are well insulated and very protected. Another thought that I had after posting that was that there is no reason that they every have for not paying, since they can always print up cash out of thin air. So if they do refuse to pay one day it will be to precipitate a big die off among the old folk. THAT may be a real possibility because it is something I know they have always wanted.

          • TPTB-USA February 11, 2019 at 3:30 pm #

            Don’t you think that the system is flawed, and therefore the problem, rather than the current DC crop that is just gaming the system?

            They really can’t be that smart, otherwise they would recognize what they are in for.

          • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 10:10 am #

            Absolutely TB TB, the system is completely and totally corrupt and those that run it know this and have chosen to take care of number one and say the hell with the rest of us. After all, what can we do even if we did realize it and get super pissed? Nothing and they know it so they might as well cash in because with enough wealth they can always protect themselves from the angry crowd, even if that means heading underground with the other snakes.

          • TPTB-USA February 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

            I guess my point is that if it is all just a game, and if there is not much we can do about it, then for our own individual health and piece of mind, we shouldn’t take it too seriously.

            And, in that regard, we need to be open to realistic radical ideas that amount to a game reset (and not get married to ideas like social security being a birth-right).

          • Walter B February 14, 2019 at 4:33 pm #

            If it’s a game TPTB then it’s the game of Life and only the mindless will ever have peace of mind. Sometimes in life a person has to stand up and fight for what is right, that’s part of the game. Those who refuse to do this under any and every circumstance become chronic victims, but that is not my style. I would rather fight, but that’s just me.

          • TPTB-USA February 15, 2019 at 1:48 am #

            I commend you Walter. Your journey on earth will not likely bring you peace along the way, but you know that it will be there waiting for you.

            … and assuming it is not improper, I’d like to add another perspective:

            Plato’s account of the trial of Socrates
            “We shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and a migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the site of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now, if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O friends and judges, can be greater than this? …Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. …What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they would not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.”

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:13 am #

        Whats funnier than the story is the photo that illustrates it,

        https://news.gallup.com/poll/246602/americans-confidence-finances-keeps-growing.aspx

      • MrFreeze February 11, 2019 at 1:50 pm #

        Hi Walter, FINALLY, someone who understands that SS is an insurance policy, a “fail-safe” system that ensures that those who have worked (and contributed) during their working lives, will not fall into abject poverty. Most Americans today don’t understand that it’s not an “investment product.” Nor is it an “entitlement.” We pay into it and we have every right to collect it. It is not socialism.

      • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 4:28 pm #

        Walter, the Social Security Tax scheme is a very real Ponzi scheme whereby the government takes taxes from your working input and then they give you a worthless IOU in exchange to reimburse the contributions you made by giving some of that promissory note back to you with core inflation stripped out of it so that people on Social Security get less instead of more of what they thought was promised.

        Currently, the US Government is woefully underfunded in terms of liability but it is actually the unfunded liability that will ensure that you a pretty well guaranteed a couple of cups of coffee and a few groceries to keep you from starvation.

        Never forget Burgess Meridith in the movie State of Grace where he plays the part of the old man on Social Security eating stewed tomatoes out of a tin.

        All people in the US on Social Security will soon be eating stewed tomatoes out of a tin when the unfunded liabilities topple government expenditures due to no more money in the coffers on a state-by-state basis, eh. Illinois is a case in point and so is Jersey. NYC is in dire straights too as RE implodes coffers via lost taxation on rents.

        RW

    • Being There February 11, 2019 at 10:00 am #

      What we have right now thanks to the Chicago Sch. of Business, Milton Friedman’s model of Neoliberalism is socialism turned on its head…..sometimes you go so far from Govt services you get socialized benefits for the rich and well-connected CEO/Banker and privatized war profiteers and extreme capitalism for the people……
      YUP that’s what the Republicans are trying for in every action and law they create.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:17 pm #

        So you’re in favor of the Wall, right? And ending all immigration? As you know (bet you don’t though), the more people, the smaller the pieces of pie. They want us at 400 million by 2050. Thus the pieces of pie will be half as big as they were when we were 200 million or so, back when these programs started.

        You’re right that what we have isn’t Socialism, but rather Oligarchical Plutocracy. But Marxist Socialism already failed – and it is just Globalism; what we already have under a disguised form. And this is what the Corporations want for us, the masses.

        • AKlein February 12, 2019 at 8:43 am #

          For a glimpse of what we can expect from “The Corporations” all we need to do is gaze upon the “greatness” of those who are their figureheads. I say figureheads because it’s quite likely that’s just what they are. Take Bezos, for example. A brilliant genius, or just a clever front-man? Personally, I suspect the latter. Same for all the other “greats”, such as those at Google, Starbucks, etc.

    • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 10:08 am #

      Another piece of evidence that I would point out Evelyn that would indicate that Social Security is not socialism is the fact that mega-wealthy capitalist billionaires even collect it:

      https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/05/27/how-much-do-billionaires-get-in-social-security.aspx

    • TiredOfTheTreadmill February 11, 2019 at 10:12 am #

      I’d call the countrys’ current tax and monetary policy Socialism for wealthy people and stock holders. But then, socialism for the wealthy and powerful, and dog-eat-dog capitalism for everyone else has been the American way for decades.

      The people in this country have been brainwashed into believing that giving money to poor people makes them lazy. ALL of them. Every single one. But, giving money to rich people makes them “job creators”. Every single one. Apparently, the American people have an affinity for the flavor of bullshit.

      Although, I do agree with Jim’s point that all of the political-economic ideologies that everyone argues over so emotionally need to be rethought. The conditions in which those stories and ideals arose is now different with 7.7 billion people, shaky ecosystems, invasive and harmful technology, etc… It’s time to come up with new ideals and stories.

      • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 10:13 am #

        Socialism for the wealthy and corporate jerks, eh? I like that. You should put in for a copyright on that one.

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 10:12 am #

      The real bad guy in the room is Communism, one form of socialism.

      Communism is the government ownership of the means of production. Making all the decisions by a very small group for the productive forces of a country. No market forces allowed.

      That is why it inevitably fails.

      Socialism in Europe is based on political expediency, where the government is deemed the best way to conduct business. Healthcare comes to mind. Social Security was started to move older people in jobs out so younger people could go to work. Medicare to address the problem that the biggest users of healthcare could not afford to use it.

      Government steps in to fill the gaps, so to speak.

      The core of western governments are still capitalistic and competitive, it the New World Order is trying their best to change that.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:21 pm #

        The Corporations and Banks you worship are completely on board for Socialism. You simply don’t get it. If they are forced to shift direction, they will simply smirk and rule us directly from the board rooms rather than the political puppets they fund. And many of them would probably prefer it, completely comfortable with letting billions die rather than slowly bringing down the World’s population a la the Georgia Guidestones.

        The idea that everyone has health care is very new. The idea of countless people dying on the roads is the norm. You want to go back to the norm because the current system isn’t perfect. Your ideological blinders are every bit as opaque as those of the Communists who ruined the 20th Century.

      • james charles February 13, 2019 at 4:22 am #

        The ‘bad guy’ in the room is ‘capitalism’?

        “We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN “

    • EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

      Y’all could have done it the republican way and put your money into Enron instead.

      It is a fine conceit to think that for all those years you were investing in yourselves with SS but the reality is that it was just you doing your share to provide relief for the millions who had no other form of income at the time.

      Having lived during the golden age of being an American citizen the money you paid into SS was skimming some cream off the top for use to enable a seriously needful demographic survive.

      Most refuse to see it this way but when the entire shindig breaks down blame it on those who robbed the SS piggybank to finance “spreading democracy” and …er…looking after corporate interests.

      If you boomers think you had it bad paying what in a rear view mirror was a paltry tax to help the otherwise hopelessly screwed “greatest generation” put yourself in the shoes of a worker today who pours his money into the same rat hole to support the schmucks who allowed their choices for leadership to get us into the mess we are now in.

      • RocketDoc February 11, 2019 at 5:04 pm #

        I like this framing. I just collected my 2nd SS check while I’m still working. It’ll all be taxed away but I just wanted them to have to send it to me… I am not expecting to be able to have a knee replacement in 10 years or a Grand Circle tour of Spain. If the Ponzi scheme makes it until I’m 78, then it’ll just be my kids taking it on the chin…

    • Pox on Both February 11, 2019 at 12:32 pm #

      Yes, FICA is meant to be an insurance program that is self sufficient through contributions funding benefits. Since the benefits are capped, the amount of income subject to the FICA tax is also capped (currently at $132,900 at 12.4%).

      Since the Reagan administration, however, the Government has been raiding the Social Security ‘Trust Fund,’ which was meant to meant to fund the benefits, for general treasury operating expenses. That’s why our National Debt, currently over $20,000,000,000,000.00 (pretty scary to see it in numerical form, huh?), is owed primarily to ourselves. About half the National Debt, more than is owed to China, Japan, Britain, and the Netherlands combined, is owed to the good old USA.
      Aside from the obvious bad faith of basically everyone responsible for this travesty (and there’s plenty of blame to go around), there is another overlooked implication. If the FICA ‘Trust Fund’ is actually simply a tax being used for general treasury operating expenses, why is the income subject to the tax capped?

      This makes for a massively regressive tax system. People making less money are taxed at a higher rate than people making more money. OK if it’s an insurance program, not OK if it’s actually a tax.

      Your dentist is paying the same amount of FICA as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates He’s probably paying more that the GGG, the dark secret of whose tax returns is likely that they show no income at all due to completely legal real estate pass through rules and carry back losses. ‘Completely Legal’ doesn’t mean that the laws aren’t deliberately arcane and fixed, but that’s a discussion for another day. Today’s topic is FICA.

      BTW, of course it is absurd for the Cato Institute to consider Social Security to be an entitlement program, clearly done in bad faith to deliberately mislead.

      • RocketDoc February 11, 2019 at 5:11 pm #

        As a dentist, I resemble that remark….I recall 1991 when George HW Bush published his tax return and made 4x my income and paid somewhat less in tax. I took the story to my accountant. I saw where his dog wrote a book and made $400,000….

    • Helen Highwater February 11, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

      Socialism is being used by people like Trump as a trigger word to make people think of Communist China and the Communist USSR. In actuality, there are many democratic countries that have aspects of socialism, such as Canada where we have universal health care and other programs that Americans would probably call socialist. The attacks on “socialism” are similar to the McCarthy era where anybody who advocated something that might help ordinary people was immediately branded a “communist” to shut them up. People like Woodie Guthrie were branded “communists” and blacklisted just for singing songs about better conditions for working people. Yet he never advocated state ownership of the means of production.

      • BornToKillPeace February 11, 2019 at 5:29 pm #

        Woody Guthrie was also a dead-beat father who effectively abandoned his wife and children to scratch it out as a pre-beatnik.

        • Helen Highwater February 12, 2019 at 2:35 pm #

          There are a lot of dead-beat fathers, but they don’t all get branded as “communists” because they advocate for more equality.

          • BornToKillPeace February 12, 2019 at 6:31 pm #

            There is truth to that. I only bring it up because I thought it the evil to his good, and no one whom has ever mentioned him to me seems to be aware of his darker side.

    • wolfbay February 11, 2019 at 3:20 pm #

      Socialism means the state owns and operates the means of production. A social democracy like Sweden is very much capitalistic with very successful companies . Taxing corporations and individuals to fund certain social programs is not socialism.

      • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 3:58 pm #

        Thank you.

      • Exscotticus February 11, 2019 at 4:47 pm #

        That’s big-S Socialism. There are many other forms. What they all have in common is an emphasis on the collective over the individual. The greater the emphasis, the greater the degree of socialism. Until we reach a point where individuality doesn’t matter or count for anything. The Founding Fathers would have called this a “tyranny of the majority”. This is why we have a Bill of Rights and INDIVIDUAL liberties. Anyway, the point is that socialism is a gradient. The USA has socialist elements, but less so than, say, France.

        • shotho February 11, 2019 at 5:14 pm #

          Yes, that’s right and another word for it is ‘statism’. We already have it in two forms, welfare statism and warfare statism which might actually be worse than socialism. In socialism, the individual is supposed to be supreme, as in the People’s Republic. Of course, it never works out like that and has to be enforced by a police state. Here, power is concentrated in a few hands as in ‘socialist’ countries but we continue to believe that every vote counts..

    • Helen Highwater February 11, 2019 at 3:48 pm #

      A good article in today’s Guardian by Robert Reich: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/11/trump-offers-socialism-for-the-rich-capitalism-for-everyone-else

      A quote from the article: Trump is promoting socialism for the rich and harsh capitalism for everyone else in other ways. GM has got more than $600m in federal contracts, plus $500m in tax breaks. Some of this has gone into the pockets of GM executives. Chairman and CEO Mary Barra raked in almost $22m in total compensation in 2017 alone.

      But GM employees are subject to harsh capitalism. GM is planning to lay off more than 14,000 workers and close three assembly plants and two component factories in North America by the end of 2019.

      When he was in business, Trump perfected the art of using bankruptcy to shield himself from the consequences of bad decisions – socialism for the rich at its worst – while leaving employees twisting in the wind.

      Now, all over America, executives who run their companies into the ground are getting gold-plated exit packages while their workers get pink slips.

      • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 7:36 pm #

        GM cars aren’t selling too good. I bought a new Malibu last year and it seems ok so far.

        brh

        • Q. Shtik February 12, 2019 at 10:07 pm #

          GM cars aren’t selling too good. – BRH

          ===============

          On the rare occasion I word a sentence that way my kid Thom, a chip off the ol’ block, will say to me: “no dad, it’s too well.”

          • benr February 14, 2019 at 10:59 am #

            Bought my wife a Chevy Malibu with all the bells and whistles car looked like a spaceship inside.
            Drove well and ran well for about two years then it started having some quirks. Right about the time we started taking it to the dealership to attempt getting the quirks fixed someone rear ended my wife with an end over end roll over accident that nearly ran her head on into a Semi-truck and a ditch totaled the car. Had she been in many of the other cars today I suspect she would be dead.
            Flash forward three years progressive finally paid her five grand for the chiropractor and 3500 for the car mind you she never had a day of back pain and now she lives with it just like I do. We had to sue progressive to take responsibility for their insured running a red light at 70 miles and hour and taking out three cars. We now have a hyndai which also seems to have some quirks. CARS TODAY GO FIGURE.

      • Robert White February 11, 2019 at 11:51 pm #

        The executives are professionally bound to make profit for the shareholders and in doing so they get executive compensation for keeping the share price as high as they can get it. Executive compensation is based upon a percentage of the profits. Shareholders are incentivized to boost executive pay as long as they are making profits themselves. GM owes no allegiance to their customer if they provide a marketable product that the public will buy. GM is consolidating their position within all market activity and they are taking advantage of the end of bull markets by investing heavily in the future manufacturing sector of electric cars so that they can compete with the other manufacturers that will eat their lunch if they don’t make the industry move towards renewable resource utilization for the transportation sector.

        In ten years the electric car will be the average car on city streets in North America. They will have to iron the bugs out of it in CANADA though. Our temperatures would freeze most electric car batteries.

        RW

    • gonetohell February 11, 2019 at 5:01 pm #

      Kunstler is clueless to the questions you pose. He seems to believe that the continuing and unrelenting concentration of wealth and power should be left alone. Trying to spread the wealth would somehow, in Kunstler’s mind, be worse then the horrid end he paints for us currently. I don’t know what brand of kool-aid kunstler’s been chugging lately, but he really needs to back off a bit.

      Kunstler begins his pontification with a statement suggesting that democratic socialist want all businesses turned over to government control. I haven’t seen that proposal from anyone on the left. Not even from the evil Bernie Sanders or AOC.

      Kunstler states America no longer has any real wealth, so there’s nothing to divvy up for fairness sake. If you buy that argument he has a bunch of books he’s written which you might like to purchase. The sale of which I presume will garner him some of that fake wealth.

      • shotho February 11, 2019 at 5:18 pm #

        Kunstler is only doing as everyone else, presumably you as well. Grad all you can while you can. I see America as a great big beached whale, being carved alive by the bystanders. At some point, there’s nothing left.

      • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 7:34 pm #

        Jim isn’t making a lot from his books.

        I’m surprised one of the movie studios haven’t picked up a World Made by Hand novel.

        brh

        • montsegur February 12, 2019 at 1:35 am #

          Not really surprising. Jim’s vision implies the ultimate failure of the progressive outlook, and Hollywood is too invested in that outlook to depict it as having not succeeded.

          Cheers

      • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:03 am #

        Question to you why do rich people need to pay more than anyone else?
        What do you consider rich?
        You do realize that compared to half the rest of the world everyone in America is rich!
        If you have a toilet and indoor plumbing your doing pretty well.
        Consider that in the world of Globalism what you have someone else wants to take from you.
        Now what do you consider being rich?
        Should you be taxed at 30%, 50%, 90%?
        I ask because I have seen what truly poor people look like and how they live and even our homeless people live better than many people in Africa parts of Asia and India.

    • FincaInTheMountains April 9, 2019 at 4:53 pm #

      test

  2. Walter B February 11, 2019 at 9:54 am #

    Yes Jim, the real scary part is that there is not only nothing that can be done to correct our course, but that there are too many powers to be that can stand in the way and block any progress from being made towards any solutions. If they even had any solutions, that is, but they don’t.

    • montsegur February 11, 2019 at 11:50 am #

      The navigator has gone AWOL, and the sky is darkening.

      Cheers

  3. thenuttyneutron February 11, 2019 at 9:55 am #

    Socialism is a cure that will solve nothing and make things worst. The Socialism cure is like a headshoot being a great cure for a headache.

    • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 10:12 am #

      Socialism works, but only for those doing the collecting and the re-distribution, and it only works as long as there are enough patsies to rob that have enough stuff to rob in the first place. Once the serfs are left with not enough to take any more, another revolution will follow, unless you do what the Soviet Union did and break up the scam on your own.

    • Paulo February 11, 2019 at 10:28 am #

      “Hup hup hup, me Tarzan, made it all by myself, fuck you very much. You snowflake Jane, pinko Socialist, keep your hands off my stuff. We own this Country to make money for us….Tarzan’s family, not Jane’s”.So says the Erik Princes of the World, Mnuchins, Trumpers, Devos….. fixing education problems, Bushes, Clintons, etc.

      Yep, things are winding down, maybe. We’ll just smugly call it entropy, which is just another cop-out chickenshit way of whining, “There’s no use, no use, nothing will change”. and “There’s just no money”

      Folks, “There’s always money when ‘they’ want some, so said my 98 year old mom (WW2 vet) who just died. “There’s always money”.

      I remember hearing this same shit when I signed up the airline I worked for 40 years ago. We unionized, and the owners said outright, “I think you forget we own the airline for us, not the employees”. I remember replying, “I think you forget we do all the work and take all the risks flying your junk around so you can go for lunch everyday at Arnold’s hotel”.

      Spread it around, already. Give a token raise to at least make it look fair and not rigged. Otherwise, to quote Bob Lee Swagger in the movie ‘Shooter’, “I’m going to burn their playhouse down”. If these idiots want to continue having their host citizens around paying their payday loans, student loans, credit cards, 7 year car payments, they’re going to have to spread a little more cash on the masses, and not just more fertilizer while they suck blood all the way to Davos.

      Is it too much to ask just to be able to go to the fucking doctor without being afraid or angry.

      Get the matches out, already. What are people waiting for, potato famine Ireland? There’s no place left to run for a better life. Time to stand up and quit bending over for the oligarchs.

    • EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 12:27 pm #

      The purest form of Socialism, Native American Culture, was doing just fine until it encountered the greediest form of culture.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:26 pm #

        The wealthy tribes of the Northwest Coast would destroy their goods to show who had the most and was the least attached to it. And they would kill their slaves since they were just “goods”.

        Don’t forget the widespread cannibalism, cult of torture, and general warlike nature of many of the tribes. If you were doing so good, how could we have taken this continent from you so easily?

        • thenuttyneutron February 11, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

          It was easy to take the continent! Just be generous to the native savages by giving them stuff contaminated with variola and get them hooked on firewater!

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 5:28 pm #

            We thought America was a damn good place
            Too damn good for Red Man Race.

            So we took it by fire and storm, strong arms and strong drink. You no like? So why are you still here? Run back to Europe and become a dhimmi. The Mexican Indians have told you to get out and many of their North American cousins have said the same. Yet you remain. Why? As Thoreau said, there are 999 patrons of virtue for every virtuous man.

          • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:08 am #

            As someone who really has Cherokee ancestry I demand you leave me the keys to your house and cars as well as your bank account and go back to Europe!
            I find it amusing that people from Mexico think they have any more right to anything than anyone else simply because they have some splash of Native American blood mixed in.

      • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 1:39 pm #

        The Native Americans were eliminated utilizing superior technology, which will be how we are eliminated as well.

        • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 2:33 pm #

          The Springfield rifle and Colt revolver?

          • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

            The Henry repeater, Gatling gun and 12 pound artillery pieces as well. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but serious firepower will blow your ass to hell!

        • montsegur February 12, 2019 at 1:40 am #

          Walter,

          You would enjoy this title if you haven’t read it already.

          The Social History of the Machine Gun, by John Ellis.

          Some interesting insight to be had in that one. A quote by a reader:

          “it’s a fascinating overview of the machine gun’s integration into warfare from the Maxim gun in the late 19th century to the brutally asymmetrical colonial wars in Africa”

          https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98294.The_Social_History_of_the_Machine_Gun

          Cheers

          • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 5:17 pm #

            Thanks for the suggestion, I have bookmarked it for checking out later.

      • … You just can’t consolidate 15,000 years and thousands if not tens of thousands of cultures under one rubric.

        But- I think everyone knows what you mean. The most noble conceptualization based on elements of a historical understanding. There were enough of those elements encountered first hand by immigrants in the early centuries to prove they existed. And of course elements confirming the worst stereotypes.

        Native America lives on within the DNA of many of us. When Liz Warren clambakes a media potlach with anscestral or cultural affiliation, it is in good faith, with honorable principles and intention, and those principles should not be discarded out of hand as anachronistic. Instead they should be closely appraised on their own merits on the context it is applied. After all there is no consideration of “the native American vote”, it’s numerically irrelevant.

        If nothing is culturally appropriated, that culture is destroyed. So as long as Warren is promoting the principles in a contietious way, I have no problem with it.

        • Nightowl February 14, 2019 at 10:06 am #

          “Good faith”

          Yes, faith that her entrance to elite universities will be that much more likely.

          A typical American hustler.

          • Nightowl February 14, 2019 at 11:39 am #

            BTW, my favorite part of that video you linked is the figurine caricature of a black man eating watermelon up on the shelf. There is a close up of it available on the Net.

            Just imagine the press and McResist reaction if Trumpi had that on his desk.

        • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:21 am #

          Elizabeth Warren lied about how much Native American DNA she actually had she actually has far less then most people who don’t claim any Native America heritage but who’s family has been here for several hundred years.
          She used it to further her agenda!
          It is now back firing on her bigly.
          This woman is phony and it comes out in every ridiculous stunt she pulls to include her failed video of her husband and her owe I want a beer.
          Such a wooden fake person.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWehvtOL_VI

          • Nightowl February 14, 2019 at 11:34 am #

            It is a window to her pathetic soul.

      • Exscotticus February 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm #

        >>> The purest form of Socialism, Native American Culture, was doing just fine until it encountered the greediest form of culture.

        LOL. If by “doing just fine” you mean living at the very edge of existence, with stone age technology, ceaselessly attacking each other, then yes I agree. FYI, there wasn’t one culture. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs, for example, all had distinct cultures. That being said, they all practiced cannibalism and human sacrifice, so they had that in common, I guess. Yes it was quite the socialist utopia!—except for the ones being sacrificed or eaten.

        • EvelynV February 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm #

          All of them, huh?

          U R so stoopid.

          • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:22 am #

            Nice and yet you can’t prove him wrong….Nor can you spell stupid.

          • EvelynV February 14, 2019 at 7:32 pm #

            http://www.native-languages.org/iaq13.htm

            Q: Were Native Americans cannibals?

            A: Not for the most part, no, but there were some groups who were. The Aztecs were notorious for ritual cannibalism (warriors would eat a strip of flesh from enemies they had slain in combat). Some people dispute this, but the Aztecs’ own written and oral histories seem to support it as the truth. The Karankawa tribe of southeast Texas was also said to practice ritual cannibalism on defeated enemies. There were a few Amazonian tribes who practiced funerary cannibalism (family and friends would eat part of a dead tribal member’s body as a religious ceremony at the funeral). Finally, the Carib people of South America were said to kill and eat prisoners of war, though it’s been pointed out that the Spaniards who made this claim were lining their own pockets by doing so (Queen Isabella had forbidden her subjects from selling Africans, or Indians, as slaves unless they were cannibals).

            None of the other 1200 Native American cultures engaged in culturally sanctioned cannibalism at the time of European contact. That doesn’t mean cannibalism never happened–there were certainly stories in the American Indian oral history about cannibalistic incidents (a hunting party trapped in a snowstorm who fell to eating each other, a war chief who taunted captives by striking them in the face with their leader’s heart and then taking a bite out of it.) Such incidents also occurred in American and European history under similar starving-in-the-wilderness and war-atrocity circumstances (a company of Crusaders, for example, bragged of having grilled and eaten a Saracen; a Jamestown settler was executed for cannibalizing his wife during a famine). Cannibalism should not be considered part of American Indian culture on this account any more than it would be considered part of European or American culture–it was culturally unacceptable behavior. The Sioux considered cannibalism a sin, the Cree considered it a mental illness, the Algonquin and Ojibwe considered it a sign of possession by an evil spirit. In almost all cases, American Indian cannibals–just like European or American cannibals–were put to death as soon as they were discovered.

            Q: But weren’t they cannibals before that–in ancient times, before European contact?
            A: Most of them definitely were not. It’s been suggested that the pre-Iroquois Mohawk and the ancient Anasazi may have practiced group cannibalism. This is possible, though it has not been proven. The Mohawk were called “man-eaters” by their Algonquian enemies on account of this belief about their lurid past. Some Mohawks think it was probably true, others that you shouldn’t give too much credence to slurs people’s enemies cast at their ancestors. The claim about the ancient Anasazi came more recently, when anthropologists found a burial site with skeletons whose flesh had apparently been hacked off the bones after their death. Personally, I’m not too impressed by that evidence. Even if those bodies were cut up for cannibalistic purposes, we’re talking about one anomalous site with only seven bodies in it. Of the hundreds of ancient Indian burial sites exhumed by archaeologists–including dozens of Anasazi ones–this was the only one with this strange appearance. For all we know it was the work of some Anasazi psychopath. We can’t assume ancient Anasazi culture included cannibalism from this one unusual case any more than we could say American culture includes cannibalism because of Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer.

  4. Neon Vincent February 11, 2019 at 9:56 am #

    This isn’t the first time you’ve forecast that The Singularity will not be the problem more technologically optimistic futurists expect it will be. I recall watching you in “Prophets of Doom” telling Hugo De Garis that and getting him to consider other issues as more pressing. One of those is climate change, which got into the news last week when 2018 officially became the fourth warmest year on record. I fully expect this year to be even warmer. El Nino in action!

  5. Being There February 11, 2019 at 9:56 am #

    What the left of the Dem party really want is a return to the mixed economy of FDR with Medicare for all.
    Say what you want about affordability in the face of spending more on the Pentagon and a new class of nuclear weapons…close to 1,000 bases around the world. Talk of a new branch of the Military to be funded for weaponizing Space and then of course the money laundering kick-back “Wall” using the l’il people’s money since the rich only want to pay 0 for all their advantages…..
    I don’t think the Dems have done themselves a favor since most of Trumpy’s voters who aren’t hard core White Nationalists and Eurocentric might actually like to go back to the economic model before Nixon let Milton Friedman in and went off the gold standard and instituted the profit center in all things from news to medicine to real estate…..
    Yup I think that perhaps defining the real demands might be better than to think these people are gunning for Lenin.
    Maybe the Green Party wants real Socialism, but anyone running in the Dem party wants the mixed economy model which we had from the 40’s through into the 70’s….
    We have over 40 years of Neoliberalism to know the money isn’t moving down to the people.
    AOC said in an interview last week that there’s room for Capitalism in her thinking as well and mentioned FDR.
    Of course there is the issue of not being able to get the velocity of growth needed to really make it work, so we need to think about what takes the place of manufacturing.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • TPTB-USA February 11, 2019 at 10:32 am #

      “… so we need to think about what takes the place of manufacturing”.

      WAR!

      • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 11:22 am #

        Like 1941

        War=manufacturing =jobs

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 1:12 pm #

          War = death, debt and disinformation.

          Why the f— did USA fight in WW1 and 2?

          • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:24 am #

            Well WWI we entered kicking and screaming oh wait WWII as well.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:29 pm #

      You’re forgetting her ethnic supremacism. She says Mexicans and Central Americans are Native Americans and have every right to be here – as opposed to you, paleface. Those White Women who work for her are ethnomasochistic fools. The whole plan is simply a way to rob Whites.

      • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:28 am #

        Guess what anyone born here is NATIVE American!
        For a frame of reference I would suggest people open their eyes to what is happening in South Africa to the Boers a people who found land with no native people, tamed it, farmed it, made it valuable and then got kicked off by people who came hundreds of years later to suck off the land of milk and honey.
        Now those same people who came from the continent but have no more or less right to the land have now made it legal codified into law the right to demand farms from a people who have had the farms in their family for hundreds of years and better yet murder them if they refuse to leave them. This of course only applies to the melatonin challenged people of Dutch/English ancestry.
        SA going the way of Zimbabwe!

    • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 11:12 am #

      >>> What the left of the Dem party really want is a return to the mixed economy of FDR with Medicare for all.

      Unfortunately, the “Medicare for all” part includes everyone who manages to cross our borders…

      New York City will cover illegal immigrants as part of $100 million-a-year health-care expansion

      Do the math, and you will find that degrading our military capabilities will not pay for it all. Even liberal-leaning “fact checkers” can’t bring themselves to agree with AOC’s claims.

      Dems don’t want a “return to the mixed economy of FDR”. How can we return to something we’ve never left? We still have FDR’s mixed economy. What Dems want is to EXPAND it and move toward Big S Socialism.

  6. izzy February 11, 2019 at 10:07 am #

    Certainly a nugget of foundational truth here. And ‘adaptations’ to this lizard-brain awareness that the ship is going down are manifesting in frantic behaviors all over the place.

  7. Mountain gal February 11, 2019 at 10:08 am #

    But in the meantime, it garners the likes of Bernie Sanders, AOC and the rest of that crowd votes. Doesn’t really matter in the end if they can actually come through with all of the promised freebies; they just wanna get elected. Then they can proceed with their Uber liberal agenda, Socialist agenda, whatever. Makes for great sound bites you gotta admit. The Twitter crowd isn’t used to critical thinking or long position papers anyway.

  8. shotho February 11, 2019 at 10:16 am #

    Indeed, the Industrial Revolution was wicked and its effects baleful. The damage done to community and nature is incalculable. As is said in this essay, there is no way to undo the damage. Humanity will simply have to deal as best it can with the after-effects. And, as said here, that means a return to local community and try to learn how to live with hard work and cooperation. There isn’t much left to help us do that. Families, churches, schools, economies, et al, have been blasted to hell and back. The citizenry is reeling from isolation and meaninglessness. I’m reading a book about the fall of the Soviet Union and how that event destabilized the ordinary Russian citizen who had come to believe that the State would always care for them. There’s no reason Americans can’t learn the same, but arguably we have much further to go, as Russia had not gone as far into human degradation as we have done here today.

    • Mountain gal February 11, 2019 at 10:20 am #

      Check out the death rate after the implosion of the FSU. That and alcoholism. They had vodka, we have opioids. Same results in the end.

      • shotho February 11, 2019 at 10:32 am #

        The average Soviet citizen still knew how to work and take care of themselves because the State could not do it due to corrupt hierarchy. Yes, many turned to alcoholism as an antidote and still do for that matter. But times were hard for just about everyone here and they did not have the illusion of entitlement that we are suffused with here and now.

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 10:49 am #

          Yes. And I read women averaged 7 abortions. The women would jump off their refrigerator, having missed a period.

    • Sean Coleman February 11, 2019 at 11:37 am #

      You might find this article interesting:

      https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/03/who-lost-russia.html

    • elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 7:08 pm #

      “Indeed, the Industrial Revolution was wicked and its effects baleful”

      Shotho,

      Reconsider. The Industrial Revolution had its excesses, but gave you a standard of living that could only be envied by the princes and their peers of past centuries. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, what was the life expectancy? Damn near twice now what it was then. You eat well, you do not freeze in the winter, you do not live in a mud hut, you do not unnecessarily toil for subsistence.

      Life in the Industrial Age has been good. Yes, there are winners and losers…millions of more winners than losers, I would expect.

      Perspective

      • Being There February 12, 2019 at 12:46 pm #

        The Industrial Revolution also got us out of Feudalism….now we are returning to Neofeudalism and the regressive tax structure is re-creating Aristocracy…..isn’t that special?

  9. seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 10:18 am #

    Even national socialism wasn’t socialism. The “s” word has gotten a bad rap lately because people think it’s a giveaway from government. Ha! I say. Ha! Ha! Ha! The reason taxes are 50% +++ is socialist countries is you get something for that money and because the government negotiates prices in a my way or the highway scenario like Medicare in this country, you get tremendous value for your buck. If government administers health care and college education, you’ll still pay for it, just in a different way, and it’ll cost less. That has never been in question. Socialism works because it essentially is government price controls for things that should not be for profit, like health care and education. That we are approaching 20% GDP in our healthcare system should be enough for anyone with half a brain to know that it needs overhauling.

  10. Farmer Joe February 11, 2019 at 10:23 am #

    “thus it was to be, through Karl Marx, Vlad Lenin, and the rest of the gang…”

    I always feel bad for Karl Marx when he gets thrown in with the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc… I swear these guys never read the communist manifesto, because what they implemented had very little in common with what Marx was espousing. Marx was a small business guy, a worker owned cooperative guy, not a Statist. In fact, I would wager that most sane reasonable people would find him non controversial. I think he would have been very disturbed to have lived to see what has been carried out in his name.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • noel bodie February 11, 2019 at 11:51 am #

      Right on joe. Without labor there is no capital.

    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

      This is true. Marx was the academic, intellectual architect of the theoretical system, Lenin and Stalin were the ruthlessly politically savvy opportunistic executors of one variation of that system. Marx allegedly didn’t even believe the system was achievable until capitalism had first played itself out. So maybe there’s hope for a variation of it to succeed yet.

      • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:32 pm #

        Lenin’s dying wish was that Stalin not have the power. You put an equals sign between them that should not be there. Stalin then killed the heros of the revolution. Made sure Trotsky, the revolutionary head of the red army was out of the picture. All of the Stalinists, which means that those who actually came after and those we mistakenly equate with earlier men of vision were all posers. Revolutions eat their children.

        I know you mean no harm. That would be devilish. The thing is that most readers are just here to have their way of looking at the world confirmed and feel good for a moment or two. Historical inaccuracies cause people to have strange notions having nothing to do with actual fact and everything to do with the strange fantastical twitchings of their individual brain folds. They they get Trumpish when unprocessed inaccuracies worm in. Then they get strange. More strange. Nuff said?

        • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:35 pm #

          The massacres started under Lenin and Trotsky. But yes, Trotsky was worse because more radical. Lenin was heard screaming at him for ordering the execution of the Czar and his Family. He feared a Saint had been created. He was right. For that you People will not be forgiven until the End of the World.

        • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 3:32 pm #

          The Dawg’s on FIRE today!

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

      His collected works run to sixty volumes. I’ve heard that there are many Marxes. You can find the one that suits you. Most prefer the bearded Prophet who encourages the workers to take their vengeance upon the Capitalist class. The small communitarian is there, but only in a small way. He wanted to be influential and he was – that means people like Lenin and Mao.

      • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 2:58 pm #

        You just want to pull my chain. Sixty volumes my ass.

        “Marx/Engels Collected Works (also known as MECW) is the largest collection of English translations of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It contains all works published by Marx and Engels in their lifetimes, and numerous previously unpublished manuscripts and letters. The Collected Works, which was translated by Richard Dixon and others, consists of 50 volumes.”

        And in web layout setting box model to {box-sizing: border-box} sets all content border and margins to the width specified and not just content. Likewise those 50 volumes for two men not one are chock-full-of-footnotes, commentary and sundry metadata. Or as people here would think; chock-full-of-nuts.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 5:15 pm #

          I stand corrected. You have them? Try reading them – or are they unreadable? There’s many racist gems I hear….

    • brothermartin March 22, 2019 at 2:13 pm #

      I’m with you on this. Mr. K, you’re attacking the wrong socialism. What we are proposing is sharing the power, whether there’s any “wealth” to share or not. I would suggest that a conversation between you and Richard Wolff would be worth having, and worth listening to.

  11. Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 10:32 am #

    Another great post this morning, Jim!

    Their Big Idea was that if government owned the industry (the means of production), then the riches would be distributed equally among the laboring masses and the squalor eliminated.

    The Big Question now is, what do we do now that what passes for “industry” these days (actually Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Entertainment/Media, and Big National Defense and all its subsidiaries) owns the government and their impotent regulatory agencies?

    In short, the next time socialism is enlisted as a tool for redistributing wealth, we will make the unhappy discovery that most of that wealth is gone.

    Sadly, already true as well. Neither capitalism nor socialism holds any long term answers for our current state, and this the greatest danger of all in current events. That said, the current capitalist arrangements enabling unlimited concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of a very few have made plain their ultimate goal if dis-empowerment, disenfranchisement, and ultimately, elimination for the many. We are indeed squeezed between a rock and a VERY hard place these days!

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 10:41 am #

      Right ol Scratch

      The big picture is simple actually but politically elusive.

      We need the incentive of Capitalism to inspire enough folks to kick the means of production into gear.

      We need something to control the bad side, and it is bad, of Capitalism as its end game is competitive and few folks ultimately live the American Dream to its utmost. The income inequality, which is a direct result of Capitalism, is a direct threat to the social order.

      What to do to stem the income inequality?

      That is what is currently under debate in Washington DC and all the states.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:44 pm #

        Capital centralizes. One of Marx’s gems. It’s pretty obvious and he may not have been the first to say it – but he saw its inevitable conclusion. You refuse to see it or its conclusion. We’re going to be ruled by the Big. Isn’t it better to be ruled – as Mr Kunstler pointed out on Friday – by those who are sworn to serve our interests? At least they can theoretically be voted out or thrown out. In contrast, Executives can be sued for their stockholders if they do anything against the bottom line. Usually it doesn’t come to that – they are just replaced.

        Basically you think greed is good. That water can rise above its source. What was that parable of Jesus, Do men gather grapes off thistles or something like that? You think they do and thus you deny the Master.

        • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 9:22 pm #

          Greed is evil.

          • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:36 am #

            People are evil.
            Greed is a symptom and their are many types of greed.

      • Exscotticus February 11, 2019 at 7:12 pm #

        >>> What to do to stem the income inequality?

        You might as well ask: How do we stem differences in skills and experience? Liberals have been trying to raise welfare class standards for decades at great expense. Now they realize that it’s much easier to lower the top than to raise the bottom. After all, the delta is all that matters. If they make everyone stupid, then they’ve achieved equality!

        And what worked so well for education will surely work for wealth as well. Once again they can’t raise the bottom, but they can surely lower the top—with wealth redistribution schemes. Think Mao’s China. Make everyone poor, and there will be no more wealth inequality.

        We live in an era where leaders like AOC need remedial lessons on how many branches of government we have. I think we can safely say that the new socialists have nothing new to offer.

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

      The Big Question now is, what do we do now that what passes for “industry”

      What you want answers too? Whining is not enough! This is the land of anything goes. Pick out your hobby horse and climb on, ride baby. Your ‘we‘ is all in your head. Enjoy the show because there are no answers. But you are the devil and already know this. You are playing with me again. Throw that ball.

      • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 12:58 pm #

        The Dog is feeling frisky today! No digging in the garden, dammit, but by all means DO get them gophers if they happen to pop their little heads up!

        • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 1:42 pm #

          The “K” stands for Killer.

          • elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 7:14 pm #

            Yeah,
            Chow dogs are known biters….

  12. JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 10:33 am #

    JHK’s chapter on entropy in TLE explains everything that is going on.

    The Main Street economic model versus the Big Box approach. Making everything more and more efficient with the final blow being the dehumanization of the process is totally catastrophic for everyone even the elite.

    Think of the capital pool of the US as a bathtub with inflow being wealth input and the drain being the utilization of money by the people. If you throttle down the wealth input by creating stuff with no human value ie manhours, eventually the tub drainage subsides to zero when the tub empties. Jobs are the core of it, to maintain the bathtubs level, a job needs to be created for every one lost. Add on to that our nations trend of providing means to non productive elements, and the drain valve opens wider. The wider drain is why UBI will not work. UBI just accelerates the decline.

    The bathtub emptying = The Long Emergency

    The elite suffer when the means of production loses purchasing power and the stock market tanks as a consequence. Everybody loses.

    Venezuela. The biggest fools in the US are the ones that thing that if the Progressives take over that socialistic Communism takes over, it will be successful THiS time.

    The definition of insanity is when you expect a different outcome with the same conditions over and over.

    • capt spaulding February 11, 2019 at 11:59 am #

      “The definition of insanity is when you expect a different outcome with the same conditions over and over.” I just used that quote on JHK’s last posting. It was in regards to the Republican’s constant drone of “Cut taxes, deregulate. It failed miserably under “W”, but it’ll work this time, you’ll see.

      • EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 12:16 pm #

        It’s a very lame definition.

        Reality is in a constant state of change.

        At all levels right down to the blinking in and out of existence of particles at the quantum level.

        So conditions are NEVER the same.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 1:48 pm #

          Right Evie. Sometimes 1=1 and sometimes it don’t. Almond Joy got nuts, Mounds don’t. You like Almond Joy.

          The more things change, the more they stay the same. Patterns. Laws. Rhymes. You should have taken that Philosophy 101 rather than Navajo Basket Weaving. Two roads diverged in the woods, and you took the wrong one. And it has made all the difference.

          • Q. Shtik February 12, 2019 at 10:54 pm #

            Janos Frost Skorenzy

        • Exscotticus February 11, 2019 at 7:23 pm #

          >>> So conditions are NEVER the same.

          Logical fallacy. What happens to particles in a quantum context isn’t particularly significant to our reality. Particles may pop in and out of existence, but people do not. Yes the river is always changing, allowing some wise-ass to claim that no man ever steps in the same river twice. But in fact it IS still the same river in every way that matters.

          • EvelynV February 12, 2019 at 12:27 pm #

            I’m sorry you weren’t able to keep up with the conversation.

            But using your example, that’s why a fisher casting her baited hook into the water (that “IS still the same…in every way that matters”) isn’t insane despite not having landed a fish in a week of trying.

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 12:38 pm #

            >>> that’s why a fisher casting her baited hook into the water (that “IS still the same…in every way that matters”) isn’t insane despite not having landed a fish in a week of trying

            Does the fisher have reason to believe it will work? Caught fish before using the same bait? Same technique? Great.

            But what if the fisher is using fish repellent for bait? And fishing in the dead sea? Then—yes—insane.

          • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:39 am #

            Fish move they don’t stay in one spot so casting your line today might be just in time for the fish that was across the lake yesterday!
            It’s called hope!

  13. PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 10:48 am #

    “Most of the beliefs and attitudes of the present day will be overturned with the demise of the industrial orgy, like the idea that humanity follows an unerring arc of progress, that men and women are interchangeable and can do exactly the same work, that society should not be hierarchical, that technology will rescue us, and that we can organize some political work-arounds to avoid the pain of universal contraction.”

    ya

    Feudalism is right. Humanity will fall back to systems that fostered survival & social stability. So, that means a pre-industrial agricultural society of hierarchy & obligations; and all of the attendant forces of religion, myth, peasant culture, and a warrior elite.

    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 10:52 am #

      Feudalism is right. Humanity will fall back to systems that fostered survival & social stability.

      In a multi racial. cultural and multi lingual Merika, aint happening pops.

      • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 11:27 am #

        Rome, Parthia, Carthage.. had large, multi ethnic/lingual empires. However, brutality in response to revolt against the central authority would become soup du jour once again.

        • SpeedyBB February 15, 2019 at 6:28 am #

          PeteAtomic, I stumbled on a Wikipedia page yesterday that hooked my interest – although I’m a Texan (long ago anyway) I’d never followed the lethal comedy of errors that led to “…central authority…” opening fire on citizens, most of them unwary and uninvolved (and including veterans, ex-cops, various purported pillars of the community).

          I think all those involved were deeply shocked at the overkill. But that seems to be the logical conclusion of “massive retaliation”.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Waco_shootout

      • Epicur February 11, 2019 at 11:34 am #

        “Feudalism is right. Humanity will fall back to systems that fostered survival & social stability.”

        Also ain’t happening in a world that is “woke” enough (to borrow a term) that the masses won’t go for the concept of divine right.

        Stability and fairness are both human desires, but they are mutually incompatible. The dances will continue.

        • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

          I don’t think US society would go directly to a feudal system. There would be periods of bad instability before that would happen. “Provisional governments”, Yugoslav styled civil war, strongmen/warlords, etc..

          • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 12:07 pm #

            My greater point being that whatever happens in the future will most likely look like something very ancient.

            There is nothing new under the sun.

          • Epicur February 11, 2019 at 7:32 pm #

            I’ll buy that. I’m not much for predicting what comes after TSHTF, but that it will resemble something from the past is reasonable. There are just too many unknowns.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:35 pm #

        Yeah it is – just means War and divvying up the proceeds by right of Conquest. We’re great at that when we put our minds and hearts into the work. Blacks and Brown less so. The East Asians could give us a lot of trouble if they keep pouring in though. Ditto the Muslims.

  14. malthuss February 11, 2019 at 10:51 am #

    On another front, there is a movie on youtube of a deformed boy.
    these are comments,

    How 3M and DuPont made billions by exposing the entire world to a toxic chemical which causes cancer and birth defects and is now found in the blood of 99.7% of Americans.

    DUPONT killed thousands of indegenous peoples in south america to secure rubber trees!!! lobbied to make marijuna illegall worldwide. poisions the world with chemicals. we the people should hunt this family and all the companys board members past and present into extinction for their crimes against humanity . boycott completley to drive them out of buisness.

    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 11:04 am #

      My former boss up to a year ago was an alumnus of DuPont. Insufferable prick.

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:20 am #

        There is no boss, he was an employer.

        Several have noted mental illness runs in du ponts.
        One of them did the biggest [at least then] personal bankruptcy.

        another killed an Olympian.

    • I was thinking the other day about the sources of all those free polyfluorinated compounds. Apart from the bonded species, on undamaged cookware.

      Bike chain lube
      That spray on stuff that makes your tires shiny
      Glide dental floss
      Various waterproofing for consumer products
      Automobile engine lubricant additives
      Detergents & corrosion inhibitors

      The EPA is holding back an avalanche of data on this stuff. Personally I don’t think the public will absorb the implications. Cause and effects are too abstracted. Plus technically it’s going to be impossible to treat or control for reasons inherent in the physical chemistry.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:43 pm #

        What about Petroleum Jelly or so called vasoline? Can you get high with it?

        • elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 7:16 pm #

          “Can you get high with it?”

          Janos,
          No, but the multitudes “get low” with it….

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:37 pm #

      Why they they want pot illegal? To make more money off it?

      • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:43 am #

        Cotton industry feared it as a better material and grows anywhere.

  15. JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 10:51 am #

    The dictatorship of the Coasts and Illinois has taken a big hit this Spring. The state tax deduction is gone on the 1040.

    The impact is already an eight percent reduction in refunds.

    The urbanization of the US is forming to coastal predominance of political power and the move Left of our polity.

    Andrew Cuomo is the first to bellyache about the tax change. The wealthy of New York is moving to South Florida faster.

    The effect will be enormous. The impoverishment of the area will put pressure on the tax revenue required to pay long term debt, especially pensions. If the socialists just increase the tax rate, more people leave, a no win scenario. California is a perfect example.

    The great promise of the Socialists, economic security, goes away.

    Socialism ALWAYS fails.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:36 am #

      Baby killer Cuomo.

      Now the satanists can do their ode to Moloch legally. Pizzagate redux.

    • Epicur February 11, 2019 at 11:38 am #

      “Socialism ALWAYS fails.”

      Everything fails, but socialism fails faster, it has the glide profile of a rock.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:48 pm #

        Greek clarity. People like Az rave about how Detroit was destroyed by Socialism. But other big Midwestern Cities with the same philosophy did and do “fine”. Blacks destroyed Detroit, not Socialism.

        Whites can make Socialism work – as in National Socialism. Europe was doing Ok under Socialism but the profound malaise lead to boredom. Plus the heavy taxes and Feminism made getting married and having children difficult. Solution? Open the borders. Now they have all the adventure they can handle and other races are having the children they couldn’t have – and on their dime.

        National Socialism would never made these mistakes.

        • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:46 am #

          You fail the color of the peoples skin is not the problem it’s the belief system in place.
          They let people in who are bent on taking and taking over but not giving back nor assimilating into society.
          Different ethics and belief systems.

    • elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 12:17 pm #

      “Socialism ALWAYS fails.”

      John,
      Yes, as do all systems, eventually.

  16. seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 10:51 am #

    I think everyone is conveniently ignoring the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Communist Russia defeated Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was capitalist, not socialist. Far more industries were privatized than were nationalized. They even employed that crowning jewel in all capitalist wet dreams, slave labor on an industrial scale. Nevertheless the communist system trounced them badly. That’s historical fact. It wasn’t even close. The T-34 tank was the best tank ever designed. It cost 1/4 of what the Panthers and Tigers it fought did, and as we all know quantity has a quality all its own.The Yak-9 outfought the ME 109 and the Focke Wolfe 190. Thus non-profit industries designed and built far better weapon systems than for-profit systems did. And we are talking Germans here, the best engineers in the world. So no the communist system was not a failure at all, it was a stunning success.

    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 11:08 am #

      All true, but I’m not sure I’d chalk the Soviets’ success up to Communism. More the fact that they were brutally authoritarian and the fact that that they were literally fighting for their lives on their home soil. Point taken on the weapons systems though. The Russians have always had a knack for that kind of thing, as Putin is demonstrating today.

      • montsegur February 11, 2019 at 11:55 am #

        Scratch,

        Yeah. Much of the victory of the Soviet Union in that war can be chalked up to Stalin finally getting smart and telling the people to fight for Mother Russia, communism and other ideologies be damned. To be sure, the army of commissars kept up a drumbeat of censorship, and sometimes, terror … but the average Soviet soldier, the bulk of whom were ethnic Russians, fought for Russia, not for communism’s ideals or Stalin.

        Cheers

        • capt spaulding February 11, 2019 at 12:04 pm #

          Pure communism doesn’t work any better than pure capitalism. Like anything else, extremes cause problems. “Moderation in all things, save the pursuit of liberty.”

          • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

            well said

        • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:56 pm #

          A much needed correction of this Devil. Good old Monty, always quick with quip or a drink.

          After the War, Russians began the long march back to taking their country back from the Tribe. This effort was the best part of Stalin’s tarnished legacy. The Georgians had to go as well. Ditto the “Letts”. After many reversals and much corruption, they triumphed in the Person of Vladimir Putin and his group. If only Trump could have been his equal, but alas we are destined for our own Via Dolorosa.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:52 pm #

        Not true. National Socialism is neither Capitalism nor Communism nor the uneasy midpoint, Socialism. It is the High Middle, the Apex of the Triangle (but not the Masonic Eye) and it seeks to create another “line” all entirely. Instead of things riding Man (materialism), Man will ride “things” – and that includes systems. The Sabbath was made for Man not Man for the Sabbath.

        • Q. Shtik February 12, 2019 at 11:10 pm #

          Please STOP with your stream of gibberish!

          • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 3:55 am #

            As Gandhi said, First they laugh at you. Then they ignore you. Then they fight you. Then you win. Helen described funny feelings in head upon reading my posts. That was her brain function slowly reviving. The above is your version of the same thing.

            How is it any different than your mockery of my racial teaching when you first heard it? Or are you still denying my role in your conversion?

      • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 5:18 pm #

        Then there is the Russian Winter….

    • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 11:21 am #

      “And we are talking Germans here, the best engineers in the world. So no the communist system was not a failure at all, it was a stunning success.”

      The failure to capture Moscow in December 1941, poor German insight into the geographic vastness of Russia & environment, the terrible decision to launch Operation Blau & become engaged at Stalingrad in late 1942 losing 1/4 million men, the failure to mobilize a strong anti-communist Ukrainian & ethnic population, disasters on other German fronts like North Africa… so, its much more complicated then just tanks & planes..however, you are correct about the eventual Soviet superiority in both of those arms. However, it took upwards of 30 million dead, and enormous cessation of Russian territory before that happened.

      • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 12:26 pm #

        I tend to read history between the lines and as such I think several aspects of your analysis are wrong. First of all conventional history says the Russian winter derailed the German offensive, and while true it leaves out one very important fact. It was the single greatest and most effective use of a secret weapon in history. The T-34 tanks was sprung on Germany right when German troops could see the Kremlin in the distance. This nearly collapsed the entire front. All the while German troops had kicked ass across hundreds of miles of Soviet territory. They were invincible. Then, right at the point of victory, Stalin unleashed the best tank in the world on them. Psychologically the Germans never recovered. They were deep in enemy territory, hundreds of miles from home, and they were outgunned and outclassed. Stalin has lured them in. German soldiers of the time say this. We were too stupid, too arrogant really and nothing breeds stupidity quite like arrogance, to see the trap that lay before us.
        History also tells us Hitler wanted Stalingrad because it had his rival’s name on it. Again maybe true, but far from the crux of the matter. The Red October Tractor Factory was in Stalingrad and was producing T-34 tanks at an insane rate. That factory, still in operation today, was the bait. Even in the midst of the fighting, when Germany held 90 % of the city, that factory was still spitting out T-34’s. The Germans were going insane seeing this. Stalin was a far superior strategist than Hitler. It wasn’t even close. Hitler admitted this late in the war.

        • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 12:45 pm #

          Incidentally this also began Hitler’s famous fascination with secret weapons. In the end he had hoped to do to Stalin what Stalin had done to him. He never did.

          • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 2:30 pm #

            What about lend-lease?

            How much logistics came from factories in the USA?

            And yes, the Soviet Union did pay back every penny (which I recently learned after being correcred by Finca)

            Brh

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 2:59 pm #

            Yes, all that was American Technology. That was our biggest contribution to the War – along with the billions. But it makes sense as Communism is a Capitalist Front.

            Yes, if He had only treated the Liberated Slavs as Brothers. Perhaps the Dark Forces could have been checked if not crushed, allowing him to create Ultimate Weapons. The rocketry was already there, at least in theory.

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 11:27 am #

      Until the 90’s

    • EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 12:25 pm #

      There is no question that Russia did the heavy lifting to save the western world from the Hitler but it should be pointed out that had the Brits not been willing to all but float their supply ships in blood to keep Russia in the game when they were on the verge of collapse to the Germans, the outcome would have been far different.

      The Americans were willing to sit back and watch it all happen until the Japanese gave them a poke.

      • revilo February 11, 2019 at 1:27 pm #

        Hitler had no intentions of conquering the West–that was Communism. They called it the Communist International for a reason. Cultural Marxism, open borders, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, Globalism, political correctness, multiculturalism, and on and on are all downstream of Communist infiltration. Isn’t it lovely?

      • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 9:34 am #

        >>> There is no question that Russia did the heavy lifting to save the western world from the Hitler

        Well it wasn’t an act of charity or compassion! Russia was fighting for its survivial and had no choice. It traded land for time while it up-armored itself. Ironically, not having the luxury of time and resources led it to create the rough-and-ready T-34. Necessity forged that tank—not a design committee. The tanks initially even lacked radios, and were thus beaten on the field due to lack of coordination. The addition of the radios was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

        • EvelynV February 12, 2019 at 12:36 pm #

          Geez you have a hard time keeping on track in a conversation don’t you?

          Of course Russia was fighting for its survival, so was Britain. Why else would they expend so many lives to help the Bolshevik nation they despised before the party started?

          What has the subject of charity or compassion have to do with anything.

          Go back and re-read what this topic was about and forget about showing off your feeble knowledge about the military hardware that has utterly nothing to do with the subject.

          Don’t you hate it when not so bright people butt into conversations with clueless comments?

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 12:43 pm #

            >>> Don’t you hate it when not so bright people butt into conversations with clueless comments?

            Sorry but when it comes to idiocy and clueless comments, I’ll have to defer to your wealth of experience.

          • EvelynV February 12, 2019 at 1:12 pm #

            LOL – as always, weak sauce when you have no reply for the topic itself.

            But yes, it is true, me have much experience – there be’um many palefaces like you.

    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

      In fact the same thing is happening today. For profit arms makers in the west, America in particular, are designing complex, questionably effective weapons systems that are designed to extract as much profit as possible but are in no way intended to be effective, easy to manufacture, and cheap. Look at the F-35. A total dog. I see people post numbers like a single Tiger tank was equal to 10 T-34 or a Panther was equal to 5 T-34. At the Battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle in history, Russian T-34 would run directly at Tiger tanks and ram them, effectively immobilizing them. After that they were sitting ducks. 1 Tiger tank equaled one T-34 tank. A not for profit state is by definition going to build the most effective weapon systems. A for profit state will build the most expensive ones. I’ll give you 2 guesses who will win.

      • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 2:54 pm #

        A King Tiger cost $300,000 vs $31,000 for a T-34. That’s what will happen in America’s next war, trillion dollar systems will get beat by billion dollar systems.
        https://heroesandgenerals.com/forums/topic/70339-cost-of-german-tanks-vs-other-nations/

        • Epicur February 11, 2019 at 5:26 pm #

          A country with a large population can afford to throw men and material into the gap. A country with a smaller population only has a chance if it’s technology is superior, and not much of one at that.

          Ask the men we sent to the front in “Zippo Lighters”. The Germans could not hope to beat the Russians at their own game. This has to do with logistics, not philosophy, as does the ultimate defeat of Germany.

          These logistical arguments are why I believe we will see biological weapons used when the next round of wars begin. A small population is easier to inoculate.

          • EvelynV February 12, 2019 at 12:50 pm #

            Epicur, now you are into the sweet spot of what I believe also.

            After every major war the planners devote their resources preparing to fight the next one. We spend trillions to find better and better ways to use bombs, bullets, and explosives –

            Meanwhile we’ve become utterly and hopelessly reliant on digital technology to survive. If for some reason the internet went down the country would implode in unimaginable ways.

            With the incredible rapidity of genome and DNA expertise how unthinkable is it that an entity could develop an effective vaccine to neutralize the effects of a terrible disease, inoculate a selective demographic, and finally release the terrible disease itself, also developed in their labs.

            Do you think there are any clever (and likely wealthy enough) humans on earth to have a go at this?

    • Nightowl February 13, 2019 at 6:06 pm #

      The Germans lost to the Russians due to weather, inadequate clothing and supplies, and the fact that the Wehrmacht was spread too thin.

      The rest is nonsense.

    • benr February 14, 2019 at 11:52 am #

      You got that mostly wrong.
      The sheer amount of people living in Russia and the brutal cold of Russia beat Nazi Germany.
      The humble invention of anti-freeze had a part.
      The fact that Russian soldiers were told no retreat or they would be shot by their own also had a part in it.
      The Russian people are tough and Hitler screwed up when he attacked Russia before beating the British!
      Japan attacking Pearl harbor was also a huge problem and the industrial might of America was instrumental in defeating Nazi Germany we shipped off billions of dollars in food, trucks, steel, aircraft, and materials to Russia and the over all war effort across Europe as well.
      Don’t believe me look it up without all that even the Russians would have been ground under eventually and Stalin knew it.

      • Nightowl February 14, 2019 at 2:41 pm #

        Yep. My wife’s grandfather was one of the last surviving soldiers to get flown out of Stalingrad.

        The family rarely talks about it for obvious reasons, but he left a diary. Brutal conditions.

  17. PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 10:52 am #

    If you want to read a very well written, comprehensive analysis of life in a feudal society, read Hans– Werner Goetz’s “Life in the Middle Ages”.
    It’s an excellent social/economic history.

    • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 11:16 am #

      Another good read is Barbara Tuchman’s ‘A Distant Mirror’ about European fuedal life in the 14th century. That’ the era of the black plague, so its not a pretty picture.

      Brh

      • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 11:21 am #

        agreed.

      • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 11:29 am #

        The plague brought on the Renaissance and the Reformation.

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 1:09 pm #

          Would they have happened without the ‘Black Death?”

      • SvrzoH February 11, 2019 at 3:02 pm #

        “Pillars of the Earth” with sequel “World without end” by Ken Follett.

        Trust me.

        They are enormous so (excellent) audio is available too.

    • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 11:27 am #

      Thanks for the recommendation, PeteA

      Just got a paperback copy from the Evil Empire for a mere £2.35. The postage was more! No Kindle version, sadly – I’m trying to impose a moratorium on myself in terms of physical books for a while just for the space issue. Can’t keep up with my impulse purchases!

      • PeteAtomic February 11, 2019 at 12:17 pm #

        “Can’t keep up with my impulse purchases!”

        ha ha lol me too
        .. I used to work at a bookstore too part time.. took a lot of discipline not to buy most of the books I saw.

        • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 12:45 pm #

          Im a haunter of bookstores, new and used.

          Unfortunately bookstores are gettin scarce

          Brh

  18. montsegur February 11, 2019 at 10:57 am #

    Of course, the history of everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and we’re closer to the end of the industrial story than we are to the middle.

    Jim,

    Well put. Nice to see the Long View being used to make sense of our situation. I am also a fan of the Big Picture, that is, seeing things in their broader context. Two methods of assessment that have sadly been (seemingly) forgotten by most people.

    Cheers

  19. K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 11:14 am #

    Seattle has a bad assed underground tunnel that just opened last week. Billions over budget and years past the original completion date it finally got finished. I decided to drive the thing before they put tolls on it and see what it was like. This was last Tuesday. This thing has been a big deal in the local scene but when I stopped for the light to get in nobody was in front or behind me. It was all mine all the way through. I did not see a soul. A roll of the dice and I was alone.

    As alone as anyone in America screaming socialism. Maybe other people scream too but they are to far apart to hear one another.

    What socialism is not.

    The idea that everybody works and has a social safety net that provides for their needs when they are unable to provide for themselves is not socialism under the American definition of socialism. In the American version of socialism socialists take power and start killing everybody. No reason given except this is what socialists do. They also steal everything so nobody owns anything. Since America is the embodiment of stolen property this scares a lot of people unnecessarily. It is a total overreaction, a logical fallacy.

    Couch potatoes are not going to put down the remote and revolt. In America every man is an Island and nobody has any power without money. I can’t get my undies in a bunch if somebody wants to think about socialism and talk about it to the American wind because nobody else is listening. This is the land of me and people here don’t know how to do socialism or what it rreally is. America is without Solidarno?? and does not know how to do socialism. Or what it really is. Here it gets confused with Kentucky Fried Chicken.

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 11:18 am #

      But it is not considered finger licking good. People start shaking and twitching when they hear the word because that is what they were taught to do as pups. Mention sharing is caring around them when they are in a fit and they totally melt down.

      • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 11:27 am #

        In socialism you still have to pay for extra crispy but the old guy in the white suit gives you a dinner roll for free.

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:37 am #

          American definition of socialism????

          • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:16 pm #

            Not your fathers Oldsmobile, that’s for sure!

    • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 11:36 am #

      What Americans call socialism is what others call welfare capitalism. That’s the safety net bit – institutionalised empathy, if you like, because everybody doesn’t have a family to keep them in old age or when they’re sick. Everybody isn’t well enough off to risk having a family in the first place or perhaps not pretty enough for someone to want to give them a family. Or even married and unable to produce babies, a misfortune that didn’t start in the 20th century. That’s why we have safety nets – so that life is just a little less mean and fewer people fall through cracks.

      The amount of welfare/safety net is up to the society and what it can afford or wants to use for that purpose.

      None of which negates the point that everything is going to change long term, but I agree the American terror of the S word is bizarre.

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:45 am #

        Dear, you need to get out more often, and see Merika.

        Meanwhile, in the Motherland, old people freeze and muslims live high on the hog.

        BUT i read the benes are better in Germany.

        • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 11:58 am #

          I love the idea of Muslims living ‘high on the hog’. Do you think before you write, malthuss?

          Although, even figuratively, I wonder where you get your information from. Statistics happily accepted.

          I don’t know what benes are. And I wouldn’t trust everything you read. Certainly not everything YOU read.

          • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 12:32 pm #

            I am sooo tired of yr endless vitriol.
            As one person here noted, ‘you are a slippery old gal.’

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3345461/Migrants-half-new-homes-built-five-years-Report-says-nearly-100-000-properties-year-needed-cope-demand.html

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 1:00 pm #

            ‘Vitriol’? From the ‘Kikes’ man who refers to (((people))) like this? Are you having a larf?

            I read the article, thanks. No mention of Muslims at all – or anyone living high on the hog. And written in 2015 so still well inside the EU. Ergo, they might be Polish Catholics, Spanish, Romanians or anything else.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 1:30 pm #

            Could I make a general point, Malthuss?

            I’m not English. I don’t live in England. I have no responsibility for either the number of Muslims in England or for anything they or anyone else in England gets up to. Or even English housing policy. Disappointingly, I am not overly concerned about Scottish Muslims – they seem to be reasonably integrated. The ones in my street certainly are.

            I find your regular harassment of me about Muslims in England to be both irrational and a bit tedious. Perhaps you could redirect it towards someone English who might have more of a vested interest.

            Thanks.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 1:39 pm #

            “As one person here noted, ‘you are a slippery old gal.’”

            And that sounds like a malthussianism.

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 11:24 am #

            >>> I’m not English. I don’t live in England.

            You know, GreenAlba, when Hitler was planning his invasions, he didn’t distinguish much between England vs Scotland vs Highlands vs Lowlands vs Wales vs Northern Ireland vs Ireland vs Britain vs Great Britain vs UK.

            And neither should you.

            The foreign cultures that are invading your happy little island family of common cultures that includes all these distinctions you find so important don’t see much of a difference either.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:29 am #

            Thank your for Ex-splaining that to me, Exscotticus.

            I was lost and now I am found.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:30 am #

            *you*

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 1:08 pm #

            In other words, the pieces of pie do NOT get half as big when the population gets twice as large. Believing that it does, or in any objective reality, is Fascism or National Socialism. As Winston said, freedom means the right to believe 1+1=2.

            Yet in other contexts you two would deny that you were cornocopians. But when it comes to minorities, logic and causality must be put to rest. They are simply an unlimited Good. Nothing bad can ever come from them.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 7:01 am #

            Janos

            I have said elsewhere that the UK is a small country and it can’t absorb everyone. It doesn’t matter what colour they are – there wouldn’t be room for the whole of white America either, if it chose to flee back to mama.

            You will have noted that one of the few things that makes me laugh about Brexit is that it will lead to fewer white Polish Catholics coming our way and more Indians.

            Ha. Ha. Ha.

            You have tried elsewhere to suggest that I support unlimited immigration. It doesn’t matter how many times you suggest it, it doesn’t become any truer.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 7:11 am #

            Both demographics seem to be low on crime and good on hard work, so whatever, as far as I’m concerned, within the overall limits that we can manage. I’ll leave the English to sort that one out for themselves, as Scotland isn’t over-populated and shouldn’t be tied to legislation that’s based on English requirements. Such things should be devolved, as are other areas, like education and health.

            I was perfectly happy with the white Polish Catholics, though. And their plumbers and builders tend not to take the piss as much as British ones, so what’s not to like? I think they raised standards.

          • Exscotticus February 13, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

            @GreenAlba, while immigration policy is certainly at the forefront of Brexit, there are many other compelling reasons for it. I think it’s fair to say that the various EU institutions have grown in scope and power at the expense of member autonomy. To claim that every member has a vote and voted away that power is beside the point. The European Court of Justice, for example, has asserted its authority over the European Court of Human Rights, and increasingly over member judiciaries.

            When you consider how difficult this process of extrication has been, I think it’s fair to say that if the UK doesn’t get out now, it likely never will. In theory, leaving the EU should be a relatively simple matter; it’s based on treaties between allegedly autonomous nations, after all. It’s not like California or New York trying to secede from the USA. And yet, clearly these “treaties” are so far-reaching, involved, and growing in scope year after year, that leaving is becoming more theoretical than viable.

            Note I’m not arguing whether it will be better or worse for the UK in terms of trade or economics; I’m simply arguing that this is probably the UK’s last chance at true national autonomy.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm #

            “In theory, leaving the EU should be a relatively simple matter…”

            Well it might be were it not that the Good Friday peace agreement, which was years in the making, depends on there being no hard border between the EU and the not-EU at the Irish border.

            I know that for non-UK, non-Irish folks that’s a detail – it is for a lot of people in the UK too. But it actually matters. And so far, it’s proven intractable. No solutions in sight.

            Actually, that’s not strictly true. It still wouldn’t be simple. Forty years of interwoven laws and regulatory agencies don’t just pull apart like unknitting a sock.You have to start again from scratch and things have to still work from day one.

            I agree that the EU is overweening in its political ambitions. I personally think it will have to pull in its neck, due to pressure from countries within it. And when it does, the UK won’t be there to benefit from it, which is a terrible shame.

            But for an ordinary person who loses employment rights (leaving aside all those who are going to lose their actual jobs) because they’re not an EU citizen, and has to accept the race to the bottom that elite Brexiters like Jacob Rees-Mogg (investment banker) and John Redwood (investment banker) are aiming for, their new-found ‘sovereignty’ will mean little.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 1:29 pm #

            “I’m simply arguing that this is probably the UK’s last chance at true national autonomy.”

            And I would suggest that this is simplistic. The UK is an advanced economy. You might say it was THE most advanced in the sense that it gave birth to the industrial revolution and used up all its natural resources first (then went off to requisition other people’s!).

            Now it’s highly dependent on foreign investment. National autonomy is a pipe dream. The massive Nissan factory in Sunderland, where people are beginning to see what voting leave actually means, has already cancelled its plans to build a new car there – it’s going to be built in Japan instead. This is just the start.

            I’m fine with taking a financial hit to support my compatriots who lose their jobs. They can have 15-20% of my pension and I’ll still be just about OK. I’m a little less happy that I’ll probably be paying for medical care in a few years because the reduced economy will not be able to support the NHS – it was struggling anyway. US-style health insurance would take about half my income, so that worries me rather more.

            This is not going to feel like taking back control for anyone but the wealthy who can survive any arrangement.

          • Exscotticus February 13, 2019 at 3:46 pm #

            @GreenAlba, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that even if Brexit goes through, the UK will not be truly autonomous because of its dependency on foreign investment. By that measure, few nations could claim to be autonomous. And I think you’re conflating autonomy with self-sufficiency.

            America loves cheap plastic crap from China, but I wouldn’t say it’s a dependency that can’t be broken. No one ever said autonomy is cheap or easy.

            Nissan’s not going to build a car? Join the club; GM is shutting down all over the USA—and it’s obviously not due to Brexit. Forget what Nissan says; they would have likely made the same decision regardless of Brexit; auto manufacturing is slowing down all over. In any case, every business that pulls out creates an opportunity for others to move in.

            Even better, it creates home-grown opportunities. Look at the phenomenal success of the Raspberry Pi! Who could have imagined that the UK would dominate the thumb-sized PC market? And despite all attempts by the Chinese and others to wrestle it away, the UK continues to dominate in this arena year after year. Huzzah!

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 5:54 pm #

            I agree that was a bad argument, Exscotticus. I’ll link it to a better one, though!

            The UK is going to be desperate. The economy is going to lose anything up to 10% of GDP in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg says it will take 60 years to recover. That’s fine for him. Like I said he’s an investment banker, and married to aristocracy to boot. Great.

            Nissan said way back before the referendum that if it lost streamlined trade within the EU it would have to rethink its investment in the UK. That’s not being mean, it’s just JIT production. Airbus are saying the same – they make the wings in the UK.

            Now the thing about desperation is that the UK needs to somehow make up for the fact that it’s pissing on the 60% of its trade which happens with the EU. Farmers are getting seriously worried. So are consumers – we can’t eat Raspberry Pis (I’ll find out what they are later, honest).

            So, what does a desperate but fanatically Brexit-pushing Secretary for International Trade do? Well he rushes about the globe trying to secure trade deals, which takes years, but you’ve got to start somewhere. And which is the biggie that’s got to make up for the EU? That’s right, it’s you.

            And what will you (not you personally) demand – not request, demand – in exchange for a signature on the dotted line? (Apart from the right to munch your way through the NHS). That’s right – you’ll include one of those TTIP-style clauses that provide for the UK government to be sued in a secret corporate court if we have the nerve to pass domestic legislation – domestic! – that risks hitting the bottom line of American corporations wanting to sell into the UK.

            Now, call me naive, but to me that’s not national autonomy. That’s doing what you’re told because you have no choice. Because you foolishly put yourself in a position where, instead of being a greater-than-equal member of a trading community (yes, I know it’s more – I’m a citizen of the EU for 40 more days) to doing what a major power tells us to do in terms of domestic legislation because it’s bigger than us. And because we’re desperate.

            Nothing personal at all Exscotticus. I’m not against Americans or their food products or their working conditions or whatever they choose for themselves. But we’re looking at a race to the bottom that we aren’t in now. And did I mention that you pay half what we do for petrol and diesel?

            We’ve already got at least one country saying it won’t sign a trade deal until we remove human rights clauses. This is just the start. There was none of this crap with the EU.

        • Being There February 11, 2019 at 12:01 pm #

          How are the Muslims living high on the hog? Sounds like a right wing meme.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 12:07 pm #

            It is. A right silly right-wing meme.

          • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

            I thought they had a thing against pork? Which is fine, more bacon 4 me.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 12:23 pm #

            K-Dog

            That was my point 🙂

          • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 12:39 pm #

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeZW1XVv3WQ

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:08 pm #

            New couples wait for years to get a state owned home but Pakis right off the boat get one in weeks. Meanwhile English pensioners freeze to death in their homes. If you cared to know these things, you would. But you don’t, so you don’t.

            There shouldn’t even be any Muslims in England, you ninny.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 3:24 pm #

            “There shouldn’t even be any Muslims in England, you ninny.”

            There shouldn’t have been any British colonialists in India, ninny. But there were. Tough titties.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 5:11 pm #

            In other words, two wrongs make a right and everyone has to go into the water if the lifeboat won’t fit everyone.

            Not that you care, but replacement levels of immigration were never inflicted on the South Asians by the British. Ditto most places by most of the European powers. I admit that Algeria was being inundated by the French and the Algerians stuck back hard. It still doesn’t explain why France opened its borders to them and others. Paul Bowles, who loved North Africa and its People, was dumbfounded, knowing they would never assimilate for the most part. Only people (like you) who have no intelligence apart from the Media are not dumbfounded. Again, I’m not accusing of having bad taste (Heaven forbid), but rather having no taste or capacity to discriminate at all.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 5:13 pm #

            The very pleasant and somewhat green Northern coast that is. The best part. The rest they left to the natives. But naturally, this was intolerable to the native Algerians.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 7:32 pm #

            Give it a rest, Skorenzy. You spoke about Pakistanis and I responded regarding Pakistanis. I am not interested in your ‘in other words’ or your interpretation of what I care about, or indeed your presumptuousness about where I get my information from. I lived in France for almost five years, which I think is more than you have.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 8:12 pm #

            “New couples wait for years to get a state owned home but Pakis right off the boat get one in weeks. Meanwhile English pensioners freeze to death in their homes.”

            I may well freeze to death in my own home one day too but it will have sweet FA to do with Pakistanis.

            Perhaps you have some verifiable statistics about these Pakistanis right off the boat getting ‘state-owned homes’ in weeks. You can include their route by boat from Pakistan just to give me the flavour of the journey, if you like, but the housing statistics would be the main thing.

            Thanks.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 12, 2019 at 12:19 pm #

            GreenAlba, your fidelity to verifiable fact does you credit. But it will accomplish nothing, I’m sorry to say.

            We should never forget the following exchange, reported by Ron Susskind, with an unnamed official in the George W. Bush administration (later understood to be Karl Rove). It provides essential insight into the way authoritarians think:

            “The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.”

            While facts are the strength of reasonable and responsible people, ignorance is the strength of bigots. In fact, the satisfaction of indulging the unrestrained id is the chief reward of power. That’s true for the petty power of making people put up with just being an everyday asshole, just as it’s true of those who embrace that hideous strength which came to grief in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and soon quite possibly in Venezuela. The difference is just one of degree, not kind.

            An authoritarian like Janos, on his petty level, takes satisfaction in the sense of immunity that comes from embracing ecstatic unreason. Not for him the constraints of, you know, what’s actually true; the alt-right is all about id-masturbation. When you try to use facts against Janos or his ilk, you invite contempt. And while their contempt is a compliment, that’s not the same as being effective.

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 1:15 pm #

            >>> How are the Muslims living high on the hog? Sounds like a right wing meme.

            Correct—if only because this metaphor clearly doesn’t apply to Muslims. Pork is haram!

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 1:23 pm #

            Well, indeed, Elrond. Janos has explained that the truth is subservient to The Truth. And The Truth, for Janos, can be whatever you want it to be.

            “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

            “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

            “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

        • Nightowl February 13, 2019 at 6:12 pm #

          American living in Germany here. Germany is the Fatherland, BTW. And benefits are better. The problem in Germany is their educational system. Which ensures that some people will never have a shot at a high salary. That said, it is difficult to freeze here unless you are a non-native who comes here unprepared for the job market.

          And even then, there are options. The German welfare state is the envy of the West, if you need welfare. Unfortunately, the rest of us pay dearly for it. But I prefer it over the US system. Social Security is dead, and you are never more than a health crisis away from utter financial ruin.

          • GreenAlba February 15, 2019 at 8:42 am #

            “The German welfare state is the envy of the West”

            It has some surprises, though, from what I’ve heard, unless the rules have changed.

            Twenty years ago two separate people living in Germany – one native, one not – told me that if old people have to go into residential care they have to sell their property to pay for it. Fair enough – that happens in the UK too, it’s normal. But they said once the equity is used up the authorities can go for their children’s homes as well (in the UK the local authority would start to cough up at that point). Is that still the case? I wondered if that was why Germans traditionally used to rent for much longer than Brits, only buying homes in their 40s. Maybe they were waiting till home-buying didn’t come with such a risk.

          • Nightowl February 15, 2019 at 9:38 am #

            You could have to sell your property, yes, but only if you cannot afford to pay for the residential care.

            The system assumes you have been productive and worked long enough to have a monthly payment from your state Rentenversicherung to cover your expenses . If you don’t, you would be on your own.

            The big benefit is that if you have been productive and also had a job where you got a pension (or perhaps you invested in private plan), you are swiming in cash in your golden years.

            It’s all very German. Do it by the book and you are safe. Deviate and nothing is guaranteed.

            Regarding purchasing property, most middle to upper-middle class people we know simply could not afford property until we hit our mid-30s or early 40s. Lending is extremely conservative here, so required Eigenkapital/downpayments are quite large. It would have been much easier to secure a loan if we had stayed in the US.

          • GreenAlba February 15, 2019 at 11:21 am #

            I suppose at least Germany has a well-managed rented housing sector, so people who aren’t able to buy (possibly ever) don’t get fleeced by greedy landlords to the extent they do here.

            “You could have to sell your property, yes, but only if you cannot afford to pay for the residential care.”

            That would cover pretty much anyone I’d be likely to know 🙂 .
            I was thinking more about your kids having to sell their home too, which seems shocking to me, but I can see the logic, if you want to make sure all members of the family cough up for granny before the state steps in.

            I presume there’s some sort of safety net for a life-renter with no serious assets who nevertheless needs residential care at the end of their life?

            It’s a major issue here as local authorities have always had a statutory obligation to pay for elderly care for those who can’t pay for their own and those whose equity doesn’t run to the long-term cost of their care. But they’re in dire financial straits. The Tories’ answer, typically, is a life lottery, so if your parents get dementia, tough, you lose pretty much your entire inheritance, and if they don’t you’ll be fine.

            Some people think a decent inheritance tax from everyone, including something from smaller inheritances, could be used to make it less dependent on brutal misfortune. Unfortunately the Tories’ base (many older people hoping to leave something to their kids) didn’t see it as the government did, so it’s been kicked into the long grass again.

      • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 10:53 am #

        >>> What Americans call socialism is what others call welfare capitalism. That’s the safety net bit…

        @GreenAlba, what happens when welfare ceases to be a safety net, and becomes a lifestyle choice instead?

        Americans don’t object to a safety net; Americans object to parasitic lifestyles and those in power who want to take our wealth and spend it on their pet projects “for our own good”. These projects include wealth redistribution schemes to their favored minority classes. The role of government should not include using stolen wealth to pick winners and losers.

        >>> but I agree the American terror of the S word is bizarre.

        You will never understand Americans until you acknowledge just how many moochers and takers are on the welfare roles, until you acknowledge just how many are creating families while on welfare. Why pay for your children when you can force others to do so? Moreover, we ENCOURAGE it; the more children you have, the more welfare you get.

        Tens of thousand of immigrants are streaming toward USA borders as I type this—all demanding asylum. In accordance with USA law, that means total welfare support: food, clothing, shelter, medical, education—everything—at taxpayer expense.

        • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:52 am #

          “@GreenAlba, what happens when welfare ceases to be a safety net, and becomes a lifestyle choice instead?”

          Then you and I would find ourselves, bizarrely, on the same side of the fence, Exscotticus.

          But I wouldn’t call the lifestyle version ‘socialism’. I’d just call it people taking the piss out of the welfare capitalism system.

          My only proviso would be that there are some people who, through no fault of their own, the modern economy really doesn’t want and has no use for. This goes beyond the ‘safety net’ as temporary succour. Some people like to call them ‘useless eaters’. I’d prefer to retain some humanity in my categorisations.

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 12:19 pm #

            >>> But I wouldn’t call the lifestyle version ‘socialism’.

            Agreed. My point is simply that socialism inexorably leads to these undesirable outcomes. Even something as simple as a safety net—designed to arrest the fall of the unfortunate and bounce them back into self-sufficiency—devolves into a parasitic system.

            We can’t even make a simple safety net work, yet these new socialists think they can tackle even bigger fish? Health care for the entire world? Give me a break…

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

            >>> Then you and I would find ourselves, bizarrely, on the same side of the fence, Exscotticus.

            Consider yourself lucky you’re still allowed to have a fence. The new socialists consider fences “immoral”.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 12:52 pm #

            Well, I’m a sort of old centre-lefty, Exscotticus. But I know there has to be a fence so that my centre-leftyism doesn’t drip on to people who prefer their own flavours!

          • SpeedyBB February 15, 2019 at 9:50 am #

            Unless I am mistaken the sobriquet “useless eaters” originated with the charmless Joseph Göbbels, referring to the handicapped – and making an argument for their euthanasia.

            I read it in one of David Irving’s excellent biographies (free on-line downloads, by the way).

  20. Epicur February 11, 2019 at 11:16 am #

    “We have a new kind of mass squalor in America: a great many people who have nothing to do, no means of support, and the flimsiest notions of purpose in life.”

    According to the Democrat Party line the economic purpose of these people is to spend money the fastest when the government gives it to them, thereby “stimulating” the economy.

    Sure is a good thing that the laws of physics don’t apply to economics, otherwise we’d be in deep $#it.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:40 am #

      Money? Digital liquidity. The computers have been forced to run amok.

  21. JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 11:16 am #

    A report was put out describing the tax load for all the income ranges

    A brief summary: 2016

    The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay 3% of the taxes.

    The top 1% pay 37.3%.

    The top 1%. Adjusted gross income was $2 trillion
    They paid $538 billion for tax rate of 27%
    More than the bottom 90% of taxpayers

    The top 10% AGI $4.7 trillion
    Taxes paid $1 trillion. 11% of total receipts

    “Overall, the top 50 % of taxpayers paid 97% of all individual income taxes”.

    Just listen to the Left saying they want even more “from the rich”. They want more from everyone to finance their socialistic nirvana.

    They want blood from a turnip.

    I hope the American public wises up to these lying SOBs.

    I am not optimistic.

    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:41 am #

      This is not a place for optimism.
      I do not sense optimism in JHK and the posters here.

      • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 1:55 pm #

        Those of us that have been around since the fifties and sixties have seen first hand a nation that was rising and peaking in the world with more opportunities and achievements available for everyone since ever before in the world. All you had to do was commit yourself and work hard and for the most part and we all did well. As time went on, opportunities became far and few in between and those who climbed the ladders pulled the ladders up after themselves. They took care of their families and friends first and once “Greed became good”, the nation started on the downhill slide. Working hard no longer gets you ahead because somebody else makes the money off of it and keeps far too much at the top for trickle down to work anymore. This is not even a poor shadow of what it used to be, but don’t worry, once we old farts die off, no one will remember and whatever scrap they feed you today will be ok. Greed destroys everything.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

          Yet it is the Capitalist ethos. It has no other. In other words, it only worked as well as it did because of the remnants of Christian Culture and the solidarity and ethics that stemmed from it.

          A Nation or even a Country needs a Culture so they are trying to replace Christianity with secular ideologies of Feminism and Multiculturalism. It won’t work because the Christian Remnant in America is still far too large. Plus these ideologies encourage self indulgence so they are Not as strong as Christianity at reigning in the Capitalists. Thus they want their Revolution to do it instead. But that will be a disaster because they don’t have Christian ethics to reign in their own hatred and desire for revenge against any better off than themselves – or against White people. War is coming and it will be Bosnia times Rwanda.

          • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 3:17 pm #

            Wow Janos some of the wisest words you have posted. I second the notion.

          • Nightowl February 14, 2019 at 9:55 am #

            I still can’t get over how dumb people can be. The height of the McRevolution for me was Pepsi running Resist ads with Kendall Jenner.

        • montsegur February 12, 2019 at 1:55 am #

          and once “Greed became good”, the nation started on the downhill slide.

          Another product of the “boundaries and rules are passé” mentality, I’d guess.

          Interesting comments.

          Cheers

    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 11:43 am #

      You talk like the rich pay through the nose, through the ass, through the ears, through every orifice in their body and then some and get nothing in return. When was the last time a poor person used a port or an airport. When was the last time the American military protected their interests like United Fruit in Guatemala or British Petroleum in Iran. When was the last time the American military invaded a county for them, like Afghanistan, so that American companies could plunder their mineral wealth. When was the last time the Space Shuttle put a telecommunication satellite up for them. The rich get an awful lot for their tax dollars,

    • EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 12:38 pm #

      Why not twist your stats in some other entertaining ways.

      I’m guessing the income of the 1% after paying their paltry taxes still exceeds by many factors the total income that the bottom 50% are paying their 3% on.

      I would guess further that if the 1% paid another 37% on what remained after the first tax the remainder would still exceed the total income of the bottom 50%.

      I do agree with you that there are way too many turnips.

    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 1:56 pm #

      Janos say “Taxes no place to save money.”

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:17 pm #

        I no say that. I no even know what that mean.

    • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 3:43 pm #

      Well, on college campuses a few professors have openly called for extermination of whitey, specifically white men.

      I’m sure parents who pony up $50,000 per year to send their sons off to college love hearing that sh_t.

      When this killing spree starts hasn’t yet been determined, apparently. Maybe when Cory Bookers becomes president and appoints Al Sharpton AG.

      Meanwhile, white undergrads, if you’re still in college, time to quit. Tell them to take their worthless degrees and shove them up their ass. Learn a trade. If you choose to stay, keep yor eyes open, your head down, avoid crowds, remain anonymous, and keep out of the Black Student Union.

      Brh

  22. lost-in-north-dakota February 11, 2019 at 11:17 am #

    “….we’re closer to the end of the industrial story than we are to the middle.”

    Which also could mean the end of our species, if enough nuclear power plants melt down. Is it possible that the “World Made By Hand” series of books is way too optimistic about our chances?

    • Sean Coleman February 11, 2019 at 11:27 am #

      Nothing to do with your comment. It is just me but I never refer to Mankind as a ‘species’. It just sounds too much like Star Trek. I try to avoid lots of these words and phrases: event horizon, black swan, the banality of evil. The Irish writer Myles na gCopaleen (Flann O’Brien, etc) used to have a section in his newspaper column called the Catechism of Cliche.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:44 pm #

        Yes, generalizations. Very bad. Lead to what some call “ideas”. As Hume said, just cuz the Sun has “risen” every morning for billions of years is no proof whatsoever that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
        And just cuz a big something with long fangs (sabertooth) has killed 50% of your tribe is no proof that it will continue to do so, or that they’re all bad, or that they are a they at all. As Evelyn said, every moment is brand new with no relation to the previous moment. Having preconceptions or ideas just gets in the way of enjoying the moment. So what if you are destined to get eaten?

        Buddha gave the parable. Man is chased by a tiger over a cliff. He clings on to the vines over the edge. A rat begins to gnaw on the vine, but he notices that the vine had grapes. He eats one and rejoices, “How sweet it is!”. Such is the life of the unenlighted.

        • Sean Coleman February 12, 2019 at 9:38 am #

          Janos

          No, I am all in favour of generalization. It is the cliches that I object to. One of the more common cliches I hear is, “You just can’t generalize like that !”

          Here is a bit of Myles na gCopaleen I just found:

          “A cliché is a phrase that has become fossilized, its component words deprived of their intrinsic light and meaning by incessant usage. Thus it appears that clichés reflect somewhat the frequency of the same situations in life. If this be so, a sociological commentary could be compiled from these items of mortified language.” Brian O’Nolan

          Brian O’Nolan (1911-1966) was an Irish journalist and writer. His first book At Swim-two-Birds (published under the name Flann O’Brien) is a postmodern masterpiece. He wrote a column in the Irish Times (signed Myles Na Gopaleen), which sometimes ran his Catechism of Cliché.

          What is a bad thing worse than?
          Useless.
          What can one do with fierce resistance?
          Offer it.
          But if one puts fierce resistance, in what direction does one put it?
          Up.
          In which hood is a person who expects money to fall out of the sky?
          Second child.
          If a thing is fraught, with what is it fraught?
          The gravest consequences.
          What does one sometimes have it on?
          The most unimpeachable authority.
          What is the only thing one can wax?
          Eloquent.
          How are allegations dealt with?
          They are denied.
          Yes, but then you are weakening, Sir. Come now, how are they denied?
          Hotly.
          What is the behaviour of a heated altercation?
          It follows.
          What happens to order?
          It is restored.
          Alternatively, in what does the meeting break up?
          Disorder.
          What does the meeting do in disorder?
          Breaks up.
          In what direction does the meeting break in disorder?
          Up.
          In what direction should I shut?
          Up.
          When things are few, what also are they?
          Far between.
          What are stocks of fuel doing when they are low?
          Running.
          How low are they running?
          Dangerously.
          What does one do with a suggestion?
          One throws it out.
          For what does one throw a suggestion out?
          For what it may be worth.
          What else can be thrown out?
          A hint.
          In addition to hurling a hint on such lateral trajectory, what other not unviolent action can be taken with it?
          It can be dropped.
          What else is sometimes dropped?
          The subject.

          • Sean Coleman February 12, 2019 at 9:43 am #

            Here’s a bit more I found:

            What does it behove us to proclaim?
            Our faith.
            In what does it behove us to proclaim our faith?
            Democracy.
            From what vertiginous eyrie does it behove us to proclaim our faith in democracy?
            From the house-tops.
            At what time should we proclaim our faith in democracy from the house-tops?
            Now, more than ever.
            What action must be taken in relation to our energies?
            They must be directed.
            In what unique manner?
            Wholeheartedly.
            In what direction?
            Towards the solution of the pressing post-war problems which the armistice will bring.
            How will the armistice bring these problems?
            In its train.
            By what is the train hauled?
            A 2-4-2 compound job with poppet valves and Pacific-style steam chest.
            .

          • Sean Coleman February 12, 2019 at 9:56 am #

            This brings the reader (inevitably) to Myles’s ‘For Steam Men’ persona:

            WHEN IT suits their book, some people do not scruple to drop hints in public places that I am opposed to poppet valves; it is, of course, a calumny. The fact is that I supported poppet valves at a time when it was neither profitable nor popular.

            As far back as the old Dundalk days, when the simple v. compound controversy raised questions almost of honour with the steam men of the last generation, I was an all-out doctrinaire compounder and equally an implacable opponent of the piston valve. I saw even then that the secret of a well-set poppet valve – short travel – was bound to win out against prejudice. I remember riding an old 2-8-2 job on a Cavan side-road, and my readers can believe me or not as they please, but we worked up 5392 I.H.P. with almost equal steaming in the H.P. and L.P. cylinders, a performance probably never equalled on the grandiose “Pacific” jobs so much talked about across the water. The poppet valves (“pops”, old Joe Garrigle called them – R.I.P, a prince among steam men) gave us a very sharp cut-off. And we were working on a side road, remember.

            There is not the same stuff in the present generation as there was in the one gone by, trite as that remark may sound. In hotels, public houses, restaurants, theatres and other places where people gather, I hear on all sides sneers and jibes at compound jobs. They eat coal and oil, they are unbalanced thermo-dynamically, they “melt” on high cut-off, and all the rest of it. Really, it is very tiresome. Your old-time steam man understood nothing but steam, but at least he understood it thoroughly. To see some of the sprouts that are abroad nowadays and to hear their innocent gabble about matters that were thrashed out in the Dundalk shops fifty years ago is to wonder whether man is moving forward at all through the centuries.

            The other day I wanted to make a trip to the south, and arrived at Kingsbridge to find the train stuffed to the luggage racks with – well, what do you think, cliché fan? “Perspiring humanity,” of course. I was told there was no room for me. Perhaps it was injudicious, but I rang up the authorities and asked could I, as an old steam man, be permitted to travel on the plate, offering to fire as far as Mallow, or take over the regulator when and if required. The refusal I received was, clichély speaking, blunt. After making this call I noticed a queer change coming over the station staff. I could hear phrases like the following being bandied about (and that’s a nice occupation, bandying phrases):

            Your man is here.

            The boss says your man is to be watched.

            Don’t let your man near the engine.

            Your man’ll do something to this train if we aren’t careful.

            There’ll be a desperate row if your man is let up on the engine.

            Your man ought to be heaved out of here, he’ll do something before he goes and get somebody sacked over it.

            Don’t let your man near the sheds.

            I did manage to get a look at the job they had harnessed for the run. There was any amount of evidence of “foaming”. Your men do not seem to realise that if water is carried into the cylinder with the steam, you get a sharp loss of superheat as well as damage to the piston valve liners. This of course is due to the use of feed water that is “dirty” in the chemical sense. What was wanted here was a good boiler washout and the use of some modern caster oil emulsion preparation to reduce the concentration of solids and suspended matter in the f.w. I know I might as well be talking to the wall, of course.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 5:45 pm #

            Yes, people rely to much on their engrams, the channels that they have allowed to be cut thru the brush of their minds by the media. If you try to play with their sayings, or extract the general principle, they act outraged and/or bewildered.

            The Rainbow is a big symbol of the Left, but they have obviously never thought about it. Because the rainbow is the rainbow because the colors are distinct and not all smooshed together into a brown opaqueness.

            Similarly, a cat Will jump back onto a hot stove because it doesn’t know “stove”. It won’t back onto the same hot stove though, but not because it’s hot or stove, but because it’s a “bad” thing, whether it’s on or off, hot or cold.

          • Q. Shtik February 13, 2019 at 12:07 am #

            Oh, this is brilliant! I gotta find me this book.

          • Sean Coleman February 13, 2019 at 10:24 am #

            Q Shtick

            The book The Best of Myles na gCopaleen has (from memory) sections on the Catechism of Cliché, For Steam Men, and various others, including The Brother.

        • EvelynV February 12, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

          “…new with no relation to the previous moment.”

          Another person whose reading comprehension is remedial at best. I said nothing about relationship.

          The crux of my objection is that the definition of insanity presented is erroneous because nothing is ever the same from one instant in time to the next.

          The best example is when Janos loses its keys and keeps looking over and over again in the same places until its brain finally jiggles enough to realize it was looking right at them in the first place it looked.

    • Cavepainter February 11, 2019 at 11:50 am #

      A point I made prior; necessary technicians for maintaining them will not show up when the erupting chaos threatens their family and even the possibility of travelling to the work site. No doubt that there will be accelerating violence which will eventuate the horrors of human rampage known through history as pillaging. Already expressed in menacing tattoos, popular music lyrics, road rage, growly-snarly racing motorcycles we witness the tremors just below society’s surface.

      • montsegur February 11, 2019 at 11:57 am #

        Already expressed in menacing tattoos, popular music lyrics, road rage, growly-snarly racing motorcycles we witness the tremors just below society’s surface.

        You are correct; those are telling indicators. Change is coming and it may well be very unpleasant for a long period of time.

        Cheers

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:48 pm #

        I’m going to start pricing suits of chain mail. I’ll wear it under my clothes like Dethenor or Russ Bolton. Thus even if I am never attacked, my body will stay hard. The burden it entails will simultaneously be exercise, expiation of my sins, and protection.

        • EvelynV February 13, 2019 at 1:49 am #

          Don’t kid yerself…

          Your body will remain soft and flabby no matter what sort of carapace you paste around it.

          Like an M&M, hard on the outside, soft and repulsive on the inside.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 6:23 pm #

            But not AS soft in any case. And I’ll be protected against your Granny’s skinning knives.

  23. Sean Coleman February 11, 2019 at 11:21 am #

    I used to think Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation was a clever analysis. Free trade was a ruthless international system that swept everything before it. I still like Raymond Crotty’s analysis of capitalism as essentially an agricultural thing. There is some interesting writing about all this but I don’t think it has much in common with our present day socialists. In fact, I don’t think it has anything at all in common with them. For starters, the old intellectuals, for all their faults (which were awful), at least read books and could think things through. What we have now in the Dems, and all over the West, is a kind of fashionable socialism that has everything to do with psychology (mass fantasy) and nothing to do with useful thinking. Breathtaking deceit and delusion.

    I have been reading a good bit of Spanish historian Pio Moa about the Civil War and Franco and you can see some clear parallels with the present. The conventional history sees the Popular Front as fighting for democracy against fascism and totalitarianism but this could not be further from the truth. What there was was a concerted effort by the Left to undermine the new (1931) Republic, which had been handed over to them by a monarchy with no will to continue. After two years of state-sponsored violence (mainly directed at churches, Catholic educational institutions and priests) and ideologically driven legislation (such as land reform) the people voted them out. However the left-wing political establishment, from the ‘moderate’ Jacobin Aznar to the Socialist Largo Caballero (‘the Spanish Lenin) conspired to undermine the new government at every step, culminating in the failed rising of October 1934, which was really the opening movement of the Civil War. These were utopian socialists, high on their own rhetoric, who wanted to bring in a workers’ republic as in the USSR. And you had the lunatic Anarchists causing mayhem in the background. Leftist fools still idolize them. The only thing the Left had in common (and no, it was anything but ‘democracy’) was anti-clericalism, as in their deranged imaginations they saw the Church as a ‘backward’ institution. By the time a reluctant Franco led the counter-revolution in July 1936 the Republic was already long gone. The modern Socialist Party (PSOE) wants to strengthen La Ley de la Memoria Historica to make it an offence to question the conventional lies.

    One of the things the modern Left (which includes practically all of the mass media) has in common with the Spanish revolutionaries is a contempt for the truth, because they think the self-evident rightness of their cause justifies all the lies. And of course they know they are right. Against this you have to make allowances for the fact that they have lost their minds and cannot be held fully responsible for their actions.

    I linked to a YT video yesterday by Vincent James of the Red Elephants. He claims that AOC deleted her earlier ‘green’ manifesto from her website and that the accusation is made that it was made up by the Right to provoke mockery. The thing is, some people had saved copies of the original and it was really was as stupid as they say.

    I have been meaning to do a summary of the reasons why the AGW story is a mass delusion but it will have to wait. You have to see it as a discrete historical event, a mass fantasy with much in common with all the other mass fantasies.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:50 pm #

      Yet all of the foolish female candidates on the Democratic side endorsed it anyway – proving that they are utterly unqualified. Many of male Democrats have as well, proving exactly the same.

      • elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 7:36 pm #

        “Yet all of the foolish female candidates”

        Janos,
        “Fallopians”

        Wished I’d coined it, but I think SnakPak….

        • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 6:24 pm #

          Great stuff. He’s the only good Snak or Pak.

    • SpeedyBB February 15, 2019 at 10:08 am #

      Regarding the socialist / communist / anarchists fighting the Spanish Civil War: when it became apparent they were on a losing streak they shipped the Spanish state bullion to Moscow, for safekeeping.

      ‘That’s the last they’ll ever see of this gold’, Stalin was quoted as laughing.

      A realist.

  24. K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 11:22 am #

    Freedom is just another word for people who don’t know what to do.

    • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 1:57 pm #

      Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose and nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free.

      • S M Tenneshaw February 14, 2019 at 11:24 pm #

        Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
        You gotta have somethin’ if you wanna be with me

  25. meargen February 11, 2019 at 11:28 am #

    Feel funny replying, because for the past few months re Trump and the state, JHK has pretty much reflected my thoughts.
    As for ‘Dark, satanic mills,’ the passage:
    ‘And did the countenance divine
    Shine forth upon our clouded hill?
    And was Jerusalem buried here
    Among these dark, satanic mills?”

    The passage has been interpreted by some as meaning churches. Blake was hardly a friend of organized religion.

    As for social security, I admit it saved my bacon last year. I don’t make a lot of money, was on reduced hours, and when I started collecting, I paid off my credit card debt, was debt free by autumn, and now am building a nest egg, helped also by a raise at work and normal hours. So, it’s been a great help to me, and I remember a lot of ‘neoliberals’ some years ago arguing it should have been discountinued because it helps too many older Americans and neglects the young and minorities…also, the ‘conservative’ crowd argues it is a drain and ‘wise investment’ would do us seniors better. Yeah, we saw what happened what Ivan Boesky et al. did with ‘wise investment.’

    Rush Limbaugh made the point that these new ‘socialists’ might as well promise the moon, since all our money is printed anyway, and really, that’s the system. As he said, when people decide that anything can be printed up, what’s to stop them from guaranteeing whatever is desired? And it’s a remarkably functioning system. JHK keeps saying it will fall…year after year, decade after decade.

    As for me, I’d say the best thing is at least get your debts paid off, avoid credit cards, although it’s getting to the point where we’re almost forced to use them.

    I wasn’t a spendthrift, but just didn’t make a lot of money, and things got out of control. If anyone has ideas of what to do to prepare yourself for a crash, it would be helpful, but this system will not change itself. As for our economy, foreign policy, race and social tensions, we might say what was said in Austria before 1914: the ‘situation is hopeless but not serious.’

    As for Seawolf, communism was remarkably effective in moblizing for war, but I don’t think it means it was a superior warmaking system. American capitalism was far superior in mobilizing resources and getting supplies and logistics out, which is what most of modern war is about.
    The Nazis had a great economy, but terrible leadership and procurement policies. They didn’t organize well, and we (and the USSR) were much better at getting people in charge who knew what best to do.

    The Luftwaffe had terrible leadership. They could have developed a long range bomber, but chose not to, settling for being a quick, Blitzkrieg like force, but unable to fight a long-range war. The Germans had excellent weapons and tanks, but as Seawolf noted, they took too long to develop, needed lots of maintenance, and while great, weren’t able to be mass-produced in numbers needed to win. The Germans, as an author noted, settled for futuristic 1950’s style weapons, while we and the USSR just improved on 30’s technology.

    Also, losing whole armies at Stalingrad, Kursk, and Africa didn’t help.
    When German industry was allowed to do what they were best at, they were far better then the Russians, but oddly, no one in Nazi Germany seemed to have an idea of how to fight a prolonged war.

    Then, if the Nazis had come to Russia as liberators, Stalin probably would have collapsed. As it was, several hundred thousand Russians and ethnics joined the Nazis anyway.

    Again, the Germans led the world in rockets, but it was too expensive and not effective. Had they developed their jets as fighters, it would have made a difference, but they didn’t do it, or Hitler saw the jet as a bomber, and so it didn’t get properly deployed, and by then 1944, the Luftwaffe had its hands full fighting off our B-17s.
    Sure, Russia made good weapons, but the Germans were still better. The Ak-47 is essentially a copy of the German Sturmgewehr, the world’s first assault rifle.
    The Russians also got some of our tanks in early lend-lease, but they hated them and preferred their own, but they loved our trucks, and you can’t fight modern war without trucks.

    In many ways, the current western military systems go for expensive, overly technical weapons that are in the long run too hard to maintain or deploy in mass numbers, but it’s more a procurement/kickback game to any kind of real fighting ability.

    I noticed the Russians just developed a cannon that has a longer range then ours.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:42 am #

      see my most recent comment. The money is not printed.

    • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 12:03 pm #

      “And was Jerusalem buried here”

      Builded rather than buried. A bit of a difference!

      It was my school hymn so I had to sing it an awful lot 🙂

  26. malthuss February 11, 2019 at 11:43 am #

    From Sliver doctors,
    Everyone knows fiat curriencies are worthless, America is done once the masses catch on to the Central Bank fraud and all confidence is lost.

    I’ve charted 2 parameters in 100 year cycles, gold and silver decline sharply when the stock markets crash quickly, due to leveraged and short traders needing quick cash to cover their positions and they always dump liquid commodities 1st.

    As fiat declines in value, some shift out of cash to buy gold / silver / food / guns / ammo / real estate / collectibles / tangible items they can use or enjoy. Some people buy into the stock / bond markets because it’s the only thing they know and feel secure about. The panick due to inflation hitting their wallets, coupled with the massive influx of US cash flowing in from other countries trying to recoup their value, causes the stock market to be the last resort to store wealth.
    Bad idea.
    The Chinese & Russians & big money knows the world financial system is crashing and they’ve positioned themselves to be the top dog after the crash.

    The communists used to have 5 year plans that always failed, where as America always looked 20-30 years down the road. Now that America has been overrun by ignorant leftists and Keynesian morons, our enemies look 100 years down the road, while the US govt has 5 year plans every year. I was always told to do what the smartest guys in the room were doing, everyone but America is buying physical gold for AFTER the reset and violence is over. Ugly times come

    • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 2:00 pm #

      American leadership no longer even looks 5 years down the road my friend, they only look as far ahead as the next November.

  27. elysianfield February 11, 2019 at 12:00 pm #

    “Nobody had ever seen anything like this industry before, or had to figure out some way to deal with it, and it was such an enormous force in everyday life thereafter that it shattered human relationships with nature and the planet nature rode in on”

    Mr Kunstler,
    You could use the above statement to reference our “information economy” and the internet.

    “So it was then, and so it is now….”

  28. K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:09 pm #

    A political skinner.

    It should be possible to write some code that will find all places the word ‘socialist’ appears on this page and replace it with the word ‘republican’ or ‘GOP’ (depends on the kind of dog reading). Find mentions of ‘Lenin’ and change that name to ‘Reagan’ instead. Alternately change ‘Lenin’ to Pelosi and Socialist to ‘Democratic Party’ or D.O.C. or whatever you select in settings.

    A red blue toggle slide can set mode Slide it left for left (blue side) and right for right (red side). As a browser plugin a tiny picture of Lenin can go up next to the bookmark star with a red verboten stop circle and line across his face. That can open a control panel to set different political persuasions. Another button and we can have a gay time or other kind of ‘transformative experience.

    Just like you can change the desktop background you could be able to change the appearance of everything you read. It can be skinned to reflect only ideologies you respect in a positive light and it can kick any other ways of looking at the world to the curb.

    No other dank and moldy points of view to ruin your days. But if you really need a two minute hate and want to feel really upset you can always put it in reverse mode or turn it off. Otherwise it is happy happy joy joy, true solidarity.

    It could be all the rage.

    Voting could be reduced to simply reading browser settings and nobody will actually have to vote or think about any issues at all. If that is not progress what is! You just would have voted the way you had your browser set anyway.

    What do we say comrades? Should I get a Patreon Account going, quit my day job, and get to work?

    A.I. can improve your life by putting virtual rose colored glasses between you and reality. I can take this beyond simple word substitutions. Since nobody actually is into any political action of any kind and has the blanket covers on the bed of reality pulled up high.

    Then it is no foul and I get rich; and that works for me!

    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 12:35 pm #

      How much pork do you eat?
      or do you prefer pork in house bills and get a cut?

      • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

        I believe the expression is: I like it on the ‘barrelhead’, but that is so vintage. Now as long as the plastic card works when the bacon is on the checkout counter I’m happy. Can’t cook a house bill. Well, yes you can but not the way I mean. Dogs can’t eat paper any more than humans can.

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 1:08 pm #

          Dogs will eat poop, paper -if meats wrapped in it.

          • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:25 pm #

            Plenty of people eat shit too.

          • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 1:54 pm #

            Janos say “Dog eat poop so he can lick master on face.”

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 3:58 pm #

            I no say that but I understand this time. I no like you very much.

    • benr February 14, 2019 at 3:48 pm #

      You post about the echo chamber of modern day mass social media.
      There in lies the root of the problem people not being allowed to read the other side of the argument and accepting the debate.
      Instead people are locked into meme de jour political diatribes and not using simple common sense.

  29. 4014HAMPHEDGE February 11, 2019 at 12:25 pm #

    Daniel 4 tells of a wealthy ruler controlling most powerful Civilization up to that time. He forgot his Spiritual underpinnings, and was reduced to
    homelessness, living as a derelict without shelter. The kingdom was all but lost, but as the Scripture says in Daniel 4 V-15 “…held from complete destruction by bands of Iron and Brass”.

    Abraham Lincoln was elected into a war, and was aware of Scripture. Lincoln had a mural on the ceiling of his travelling office railway car, depicting The “Valley Forge Vision of George Washington”. You can look it up; suffice to say the Vision tells of “Three Great Trials” for the Union of States. The Revolutionary War was trial #1 and a careful read of battle details etc., reveals how close and harrowing that conflict was. Sidebar: our first conflict with Germans… Lincoln understood Daniel 4 and cognizant of v-15 or not he was instrumental in bringing railway from a disconnected hodgepodge to a standard gauge and brought along rational timer zones: Standard Time. America had/has her “Bands Of Iron & Brass.

    Jerry Brown is now Director of the BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTSTS organization. Brown promotes a High Speed Rail network; instead, should focus BULLETIN members on the rebuild of rail branch lines into food production corridors. Brown is keenly aware, as well as some Kunstler mavens, we earthlings are in greater peril now than at the worst period of the 20th Century “Cold War”. More moving parts, more Atomic Bomb Club players, more incentive for a rogue element military or political to do some “False Flag” detonations. Maybe in the Troposphere above fat dumb & happy America? Oh, I forgot the Mohammedans: Islam now holds their hands on advanced military technology including Nuclear bombs (Pakistan), meaning the most determined belief system on earth is now a first-string advanced player in the “Big Game.

    Biblical record and obscure visions aside, America is without doubt heading into her Third and most deadly Era of Upheaval ; a combination of all manner of do-doo hitting the fan at the same time. “Time On Target”?, This grand junction of these things is called “The Long Emergency by some in these parts. Alas, the railway line mileage & reach in America, now hollowed out, ripped into a shadow of the rail matrix begun by Lincoln William Forstchen writes on a version of the long emergency in his “ONE SECOND AFTER”. And yes, railway helps save the day, almost as afterthought. The value in Forstchen is his narrative of America paying a heavy price, for coming into the Cyberattack/EMP events sans railway interconnectivity.

    This writer has maintained rail mode technical library and map collection of ALL heritage and abandoned US railway corridor footprint. Sadly, few of USA 3000 County Planner/Disaster Recovery offices have done likewise. Food distribution is life sustaining. Breakdown of food distribution & water etc. means slow and uncomfortable death. US had many military RR units, see the Ft. Eustis VA template. Military moniker for railroads circa 1950 was:

    “Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform” “Nuf Sed”

    • Sean Coleman February 12, 2019 at 9:21 am #

      I came across this one only yesterday and it strikes me as apt:

      2 Timothy 4:

      3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 1:12 pm #

        Chesterton said that some day saying, “Grass is green” would become a matter of drawing swords. That day has come.

  30. DurangoKid February 11, 2019 at 12:33 pm #

    Oh, Jim, where do I start?

    I will grant you that socialism as a RE-distributive system is doomed to fail. Once the capitalists have what they believe is their share of the wealth it’s already too late. As the bankers control the credit of the nation, democracy is effectively quashed.

    What to do then? We could turn to socialism as a distributive system. The difference being how the workplace is organized. We have examples of this in Spain under the Mondragon system of worker owned cooperative enterprises. Control of the means of production, what’s produced, how it’s produced, where it’s produced, and who get the profits of production happens right on the shop floor. The bosses and the workers are one in the same. And guess what? it works. There are no disparities in CEO pay because there are no CEO’s. There are no shareholders voting to move production to Vietnam because there are no shareholders sitting on their backsides collecting dividends for having done nothing to get product out the door and to the customers.

    This is socialism. This is society having a say in how it sustains itself. This is not redistribution because the proceeds of production never make it to a parasitic class of owners in the first place. Putting a socialist veneer on top of a capitalist system is a non-starter anyway. The capitalists already have all the socialism they want or need. Privatize the profits and socialize the costs is their model.

    To understand this we need to go back in history before the factory system. Back when individual workers acquired their raw materials, transformed them into commodities, and sold them to their customers. Some crafts were organized into guilds where the knowledge and skills were passed down through a system of apprentices, journeymen, and masters. Was this some idyllic era of everyone living the good life off the fruits of their labors? Not quite. Public sanitation was still centuries away. Society was still stratified. Remember all those kings and dukes and their hangers on?

    What changed? How did we go from a system of producers in small enterprises to what we have now? Blame it on that wiseguy Thomas Newcomen and his atmospheric engine. He figured out how to get heat to do useful work. We usually associate James Watt with the steam engine for all his improvements, which were substantial. But, I digress. The steam engine was a huge improvement over the water wheel. It could deliver much more power much more quickly that falling water. With that came the demand for stronger metals, more precise gearing, better bearings, etc. The cam that started out on the waterwheel would have to be redesigned to cope with the power and loads available through steam. With that came a revolution in machine tools to get the precision necessary to fabricate machines that wouldn’t destroy themselves in the first few minutes of operation.

    Two among many things followed from this. Machines are expensive compared to hand tools. The rich mercantilists now had a whole new economy of steam powered tools to invest in. The other thing that gets overlooked is how the skills of the craftsmen were translated into the motion of the machines by the use of cams, linkages, gearing, etc. In effect the new capitalists appropriated the intellectual property of the guilds and programmed it into their machines. Now instead of going to the local gadget maker for your gadget, you go to the gadget factory to get a gadget that has scarcely been touched by human workers. And for a modest price because, again, a machine had more to do with its fabrication than a human worker.

    This new industrial process had the knock-on effect of deskilling the workforce and drastically reducing the value of their labor. It also flooded the markets with cheap commodities. One might guess that so what if your wages were lower, everything you buy is cheaper. But that’s not the case. Then tendency was for employers to pay as little as possible to maximize their profits. There was also a pool of chronically unemployed and underemployed works that tended to force wages even lower. The US of the 19th and early 20th century was an exception. US manufacturers were faced with a chronic labor shortage that kept industrial wages relatively high. This is one reason immigration was seen as a good thing. Not so much now.

    So, here we are. We live in a system of industrial capitalism that constantly seeks higher returns on its capital. If that means moving to cheap overseas labor markets or dreaming up new financial scams, so be it. Ask yourself if the workers had direct control over the means of production would they shoot themselves in the foot? Would they voluntarily put themselves out of work or swindle themselves? Up until the mid-20th century gains in productivity were somewhat shared out among the workers. Now wages are stagnant and the 0.01% sees the gains. If that were up for a vote, how many workers would vote for that? There’s a long list of other inequities that I won’t trouble you with, but you get the point. In a socialist system there’s no need of redistribution because the social parasites are ruled out in the first place. Why don’t we in the US of A have socialism for everyone and not just the capitalists? Because the capitalists fight it tooth and nail. They’ve stacked the deck. The game is rigged. Their wealth has bought them the control of government and the national narrative.

    However, there’s a time bomb ticking away. Besides capitalism’s big internal contradiction of selling cheap crap to their impoverished masses, the growth they so crave is becoming more difficult to come by. EROEI in the oil sector is creeping downward. There are no new cheap labor markets to exploit. Consumption financed by debt is limited by consumers ability to service their debts and they’re about tapped out. Henry Kissinger once said that in a crisis the solutions come from the ideas in discussion at the time. As much as I despise that monster, he’s right. The capitalists will tell you the solution is more capitalism just as if your stove is on fire the solution is gasoline. Heaven forbid there be a calm and informed discussion of socialism. That’s not in their interests. They’ve had their turn. Now maybe someone else should call the shots.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 12:36 pm #

      Oh, Jim, where do I start?

      I d ask, where does it end?

    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 12:48 pm #

      Excellent observations!

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:18 pm #

      Does everyone get a pony or don’t they? How does the story end?

      • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 3:18 pm #

        Just a new collar and tags for you, K-Pup.

      • DurangoKid February 11, 2019 at 3:41 pm #

        Assuming “pony” is a metaphor for “everything in the world you could possibly imagine”, probably never. Taken literally, I doubt there is enough room or fodder to keep 7.5 billion ponies, not to mention the vet bills. Back in the real world I’ve noticed that keeping horses, and presumably ponies, is mainly a hobby for the rich. Not all people who own and raise ponies are rich, but to whom would they sell the offspring of their ponies? And if not to a rich person, then to someone who in turn wants to pay for their operation by selling ponies. Again, to the rich. There are some exceptions. I know of two people who owned horses that were near their financial breaking point. Their hobby was ruining them. Before the age of mechanical traction horses were a necessity, albeit an expensive one. In a given horse drawn economy they consume about 1/4 of the agricultural produce. Their gains over human powered cultivation are great but the expense of keeping an idle horse was intolerable. Can’t pull a plow? Off to the knackers with you! In thermodynamic terms to keep an idle pony is a tremendous luxury most likely subsidized by, wait for it, cheap oil. So, by pony does one mean a life of luxury and ease? Not likely. Under socialism the worst off would be better off and those with a taste for the grift would be bitterly disappointed. Socialism isn’t meant to get you to heaven. It’s to keep you from hell.

        • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 5:17 am #

          I want a pony.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:13 pm #

      Yes, they cannot control themselves and will never do so. They must be controlled by better Men. Thus a strong, centralized but non-Marxist Government is called for. The two spheres cannot be separated. They must dance together and will do so, despite Libertarian fantasies. But one must lead and the other follow. By not choosing and constraining Government with the best of intentions (in some cases), we allowed the Private sphere to triumph – and that dooms us all.

      We need an American National Socialism a la Eugene Debbs and Jack London. No Socialist past the mid Century is worthy paying attention to. Just slaves of the Soviet Union or later on, the new homegrown form of Cultural Marxism, also call Political Correctness.

      • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 10:06 pm #

        Woody Guthrie was worthy of a Socialist moniker.
        Henry David Thoreau?
        Alan Ginsberg?
        Yippies in Chicago?
        Hippies in San Francisco?

        Was Jim Hendrix a Capitalist?
        How about Jim Morison?
        How about Joplin?
        How about John Lennon?

        Was Sterling Haddon a Capitalist?
        How about Will Gere?

        RW

  31. malthuss February 11, 2019 at 12:41 pm #

    Green Alba, Bt, KD,

    It is. A right silly right-wing meme.

    Me–tell that to Lee Rigby. Or the granny arrested for complaining about his murder.

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:51 pm #

      I’m more familiar with Eleanor Rigby. All the lonely people, where do they all come from? Your throwing that cum down for GA.

      • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:52 pm #

        chum chum

        I did not mean that. I legitimately forgot the h.

        • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:20 pm #

          big paws

        • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:15 pm #

          Freudian slip.

          • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 5:18 am #

            Go for the low hanging fruit why don’t you.

    • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 1:13 pm #

      You said Muslims were living ‘high on the hog’ while pensioners were freezing. Lee Rigby’s murder was vile, but I don’t get the connection, sorry.

      • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 1:14 pm #

        Sorry, meant that for Malthuss.

        • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:20 pm #

          He hooked you. Think about his next move.

          • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 2:18 pm #

            I’ve tried to unhook myself further up. Will see if it works.

          • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:24 pm #

            to kiss and make up.

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:18 pm #

          No problem. I sent you a love note later in thread.
          Enjoy the gals tale of being mixed race.

  32. EvelynV February 11, 2019 at 12:48 pm #

    If socialism is so ineffective, why does the US struggle so viciously to suppress it in countries where it has no reason to care.

    If the roles were reversed and a super powerful socialist country worked as hard as the US has done to suppress any upstart capitalist country I dare say it would be even easier to assert that capitalism doesn’t work.

    Not all capitalism is bad and not all socialism is bad. Unfortunately both are susceptible to forms of cancer caused by the greed of the humans who run things from the top. There is much good socialism embedded in our form of government but it is being continually underminded by cancerous capitalism (e.g. cheating and fraud in medicare, rapacious pharma companies, etc)

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 12:58 pm #

      Two words: ‘profit margin‘.

      The 1967 movie ‘The Graduate’, which showcased a guy who should be retired and collecting SS now ,notably reduced ‘profit margin‘ to the single word ‘plastics‘.

    • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 1:02 pm #

      What went wrong in Venezuela? Im not trying to be provocative, Id really like to know?

      Brh

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 1:07 pm #

        Oil prices went down?

        Socialism?

        Population explosion. definitely.

        Janos would say, ‘Browns never make great civilizations, always 3rd world.’

        • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:22 pm #

          You don’t say!

      • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:08 pm #

        And you are not alone. The world is very long and when people hear it they get brain freeze and can’t talk. That does not help.

        • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:21 pm #

          word

      • TPTB-USA February 11, 2019 at 1:56 pm #

        They ran out of toilet paper, and the next thing you know, human nature was running the show.

        Venezuela Is Falling Apart
        Scenes from daily life in the failing state
        Moisés NaímFrancisco Toro
        May 12, 2016
        https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/05/venezuela-is-falling-apart/481755/

  33. bukowskisghost February 11, 2019 at 12:51 pm #

    Another excellent post Jim. Thank you

  34. BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 12:57 pm #

    Some Comrades are saying the Mexican drug cartels are embedded in the Democratic party, which is why Dems are balls to the wall for open borders, which permits easy criminal access into the US, and smuggling in of drugs and sex slaves with impunity. Big Dems get their cut and run flak for the Cartels. Everybody’s happy!

    Brh

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 1:04 pm #

      And how much did the cartels pay you to write that? Open borders mean competition. If anybody can smuggle then supply exceeds demand and price falls. The cartels want the best wall tax money can buy and they will be giving Trump a cut one way or another.

      I think ‘some Comrades are saying‘ means you read the memo and are being clever.

    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

      Don’t know about the Dems now, but the cartels go all the way back to the 80’s with the Reagan Administration CIA and the whole Iran Contra caper, so credit the Rs with first mover status. When it comes to in your face corruption, you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. The R’s have historically been far more bold and creative than their copycat colleagues across the aisle.

      • benr February 14, 2019 at 4:04 pm #

        No not even close nor could they anymore!
        Considering the new narrative is a far left leaning media outs Republicans for everything and hides Democrat corruption even at the cost of unmasking their collusion.

  35. malthuss February 11, 2019 at 1:05 pm #

    College coach makes 9 million a year and a great pension plan.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_ItX2KJY8U

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  36. BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 1:16 pm #

    Nice mention of Blake’s Dark Satanic Mills, incidentally,

    Its those dark satanic mills that led a century later to mass slaughter on the WW1 battlefields of Western Europe.

    Brh

    • SpeedyBB February 15, 2019 at 11:22 pm #

      Excuse me BRH – do you mean the mechanization of warfare? I’d like to know.

  37. BuckP February 11, 2019 at 1:40 pm #

    Do the denouncers of democratic socialism, in its’ many forms, realize that the alternative, in present day America, is not democratic free market capitalism? At this point in time, the corporations run the government, not the other way around. It is called “inverted totalitarianism”, folks! Corporate fascism or oligarchgal rule will also suffice. There are no Bill of Rights included in corporate charters.

    When the TBTF bankers came to Capitol Hill looking for a bailout during the 2008 financial crisis, they said they would gladly take the money but there would be no oversight allowed. In addition, they warned that any attempts at prosecution would be met with another financial crash. How’s that square with the good ol” Constituition!

    I learned about Jim’s blog and writting from listening to a Warren Pollack’s podcast. Both have hit the nail on the head, when it comes to America now being a land of scams, frauds and rackets. Nothing in our culture is on the level. Liberals, conservatives and their bastions in the MSM push for more war and a bigger military-industrial-intelligence-complex. Now that’s socialism.

    A country, where citizens die because they can’t get the healthcare or medicine they need, isn’t much of a country. The most devout libertarian, after being run over by a drunk driver while cycling for his cardiovascular health and thereby incurring a TBI, will likely agree due to an inability to work again. The jungle is a scary place to be, just don’t weaken. Survival of the fittest is only temorary, you know!

  38. JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 1:45 pm #

    Evelyn’s

    Your observations on the extremes is right on!

    However, looking at extreme forms of both in the vernacular.

    Socialism’s big problem is that after awhile, nobody gives a s—t about what happens because they do not get anything out of it. Communism is the extreme of this. Nobody cares, nothing progresses.

    The people of Venezuela do not care, the people of Syria do not care, the people of the USSR did not care. Pure socialism is a dead end street. Something needs to light a fire underneath the Socialisr State.

    Capitalism is the opposite. People getting advantage for their actions motivates activity. Profit is a powerful drug. The problem is what greed and corruption as the result of greed does. In addition to that is the natural result of Capitalism, that is, winners and losers. So two problems with Capitalism, how to control excesses of corruption, and what do you do with the losers?

    The answer is both. One controls the problems of the other.

    How to do the balance is what our politics is all about. Unfortunately, the folks in charge today are so politically divided and just plain stupid that not much is happening or will be happening.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:20 pm #

      Right, as if the Elite can tilt the pinball machine. As if they are just quanta or atomized individuals in your Newtonian Adam Smith machine. New flash: they attain class consciouness long before anyone else – and they’re smarter too. Such a greedy Elite (and greed ISN’T good) can only be taken down and controlled by a Good Elite. You don’t think the latter exist though. What an ultimately low view of humanity you have.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:21 pm #

        oops, should be “can’t tile the pinball machine”. Big hands over here.

        • SpeedyBB February 16, 2019 at 2:26 am #

          Give up, Janos.

    • EvelynV February 12, 2019 at 1:04 pm #

      “Socialism’s big problem is that after awhile, nobody gives a s—t about what happens because they do not get anything out of it. Communism is the extreme of this. Nobody cares, nothing progresses.”

      Is that so different than the life of minimum wage workers or even those with marginally higher wages stuck in a dying community or industry who has no realistic prospects for ever achieving a better life or job?

      A lot of pie in the sky gets talked about here in our capitalistic wonderland but the reality is somewhat different.

      What was the informational tidbit floated about during the recent gov’t shutdown…? Something horribly high percentage of American citizens do not have the means to come up with even $400 in an emergency.

  39. volodya February 11, 2019 at 1:47 pm #

    And, all the while, we have an choir of soi disant intellectuals bellowing about fascism resurging. But, lest we forget, this beastly thing had roots in the same squalor, and those tootling that particular tune are as much on the wrong song-sheet as those singing about socialism.

    If what’s afoot out there in Deplorable-land is an expression of the dire necessity of re-localization, that being the re-shaping of community and economy on a more geographically constrained level, this one thing would be the opposite to what the fascists of a life-time ago were fighting for. Hitler was all about lebensraum – “empire” to you and me – and so was Mussolini and so was Hirohito.

    But fascistic expansionism isn’t what we’ve got taking shape now, at least, in my humble opinion. The daily brawls in Washington are in part the reflection of a large contingent in the American polity that want to reclaim control over what happens to them, opposing the borderless world of free movement of money and people that suits the upper economic strata.

    But Washington is just show biz, the actors there at the beck and call of the donor class, that handful of people and businesses that coughed up a billion or so for the 2016 campaign to both Republican and Democrat.

    And, as sure as we sit here, the agenda of the donor class ain’t the Deplorable agenda. The reconfiguration of life will either come with the founding of political parties not in the pockets of the Davos people, or it comes outside the political and institutional apparatus of the country altogether. The former might be preferable to the latter.

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 1:55 pm #

      Is the object of the Davos crowd and the New World Order preservation of Their Wealth?

      • volodya February 11, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

        Yep, preservation and enhancement.

      • TPTB-USA February 11, 2019 at 3:37 pm #

        Any chance it is to reduce the disparity on a global level?

        At some point, this reconciliation is going to have to take place.

      • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 3:58 pm #

        Plenty of ‘Talent’ brought in from Asia to service Davos honchos.

        Don’t discount that as a reason for flying in on your private jet. Good chow and expensive Wine, too. Why not go?

        Brh

  40. FincaInTheMountains February 11, 2019 at 1:51 pm #

    self-reorganizes back into something that resembles the old-time feudalism

    When a Westerner hears that the Middle Ages are coming, he thinks: “Well, well, how marvelous, my grandchildren will be feudal lords living in their castle.”

    My Russian compatriots at this news fall into a panic: “Oh brother, I will be made a serf and swapped for a greyhound puppy!”

    People simply do not understand that the New Middle Ages will be much more technological than the Modern, and the new feudal lords will live surrounded by their home robots, and not living servants.

    And those who do not become feudal lords will turn into gamers who never leave the magnificent virtual worlds. In a world where robots will work, it is much cheaper to provide plebs that have become unnecessary with games and shows than with work (at least, good people will not screw up the equipment and waste resources).

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • S M Tenneshaw February 14, 2019 at 11:44 pm #

      Or they could just kill us. It’s cheaper, and more fun.

      • SpeedyBB February 16, 2019 at 2:32 am #

        Kind of messy, though. Will the robots be cleaning up afterwards?

        (I love you guys. You’re a riot. Call the Riot Squad.)

  41. JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 1:52 pm #

    A comment again on the Green New Deal and AOC.

    Almost everything that is in the plan is going to happen by themselves over the next fifty years or so, caused by politics and AGW, and the depletion of resources.

    Just like everything, this government and the public hates quick changes and AOC coming out and saying that we want it done in twelve years is ignorant.

    The economic contraction will be enormous and the effect on folks’ lifestyles enormous. Human nature is that long change cycles enable adaptation and are more palatable. Step function changes cause wars.

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 2:09 pm #

      If the 12 year plan miraculously got put in place, we would lose the human impact in 12 years instead of over fifty years.

      Anybody want to sign up? Somebody must, America elected all these geniuses.

  42. JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 2:03 pm #

    Chicago strikes again.

    Rahm is going to give $1000 to 1000 people for 18 months. Sounds like a UBC experiment.

    Another failure to put on the pile.

    UBC reaction to Capitalism and AI will be a failure as it has been in its trials.

    Wealth is man hours, inflation is printing money. Paying people to watch TV will collapse the economy.

    I wonder how the pensioners in Chicago feel about their tax money being given to folks that did nothing to deserve it.

    • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 2:20 pm #

      In Chi, free swag to be spent on malt liquor, Kool Cigarettes, ho’s, weed, ‘in de club’, and other necessary and sundry expenses. But really, how far will $1000 take you? I think this stipend is measley and should be increased, to at least $10,000 per month.

      Brh

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 9:59 pm #

        racist

  43. MrFreeze February 11, 2019 at 2:07 pm #

    In today’s NYT, there’s an excellent oped entitled “Your Grandchildren Are Already In Debt,” which dovetails quite nicely with James’ commentary today. (here’s a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/opinion/debt-tax-democrats-presidential-elections.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage)
    The author correctly points out that all of the “socialistic” programs proposed today (Medicare for all, free-college, etc.) have to be paid for somehow. Expecting the rich to pay for it all is simply not possible. As with so many things, we need to think more carefully about the future. I believe that we could alter our national priorities and figure out how to better “socialize” programs to help Americans, but I’m afraid when it comes to anything that slightly resembles the dreaded “Socialism,” Americans reject them out-of-hand. (except, of course, when the giveaways go to the corporations and the wealthy.

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

      Americans trust the business community much more than the government, except the urban gimmes.

      • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 3:07 pm #

        Not THIS American. Of course the terms government and private sector are increasingly synonymous. They’re both extensions of the same entity.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:26 pm #

        Then they are fools. And of course you’re right and they are fools and tools.

    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 3:06 pm #

      If Americans are indeed forced to “pay for such programs” and the poor are the beneficiaries, then exactly who, if not the rich, would do the paying? The Government issues the money via the Fed, therefore it is the only entity that COULD pay for it. If balancing the budget becomes a concern, cut off the MICC and the corporate welfare, and dare I say it, increase taxes on the billionaires. Don’t worry, if the billionaires don’t like it they could leave if they wanted to, but I guarantee you they won’t. Where would they go if they could? Russia? China? They know the sweetest deal to be had is right here where they stole their riches in the first place.

      • benr February 14, 2019 at 4:13 pm #

        South America some already have land and bunkers down there!
        Switzerland!
        Cayman Islands!

        • SpeedyBB February 16, 2019 at 3:06 am #

          As I’ve pointed out before, Bush Crime Family has land in Paraguay. (Pretty fucking stupid choice I’d think but where else are puto yanquis going to be welcome?)

    • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 4:43 pm #

      All Americans a free shitters with the elite .001% drinking straight from the Federal Reserve spigot and the rest on food stamps issued by Debit Cards that are owned by JPMorgan Chase.

      Yes, Jamie Dimon is profiting off of the Food Stamp scheme that the US Government controls. Dimon is taking a BIG off of the downtrodden great unwashed masses & destitute in society.

      The rich on Wall Street don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.

      RW

  44. capt spaulding February 11, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

    I ran into a term that I thought was interesting awhile back. The term was Lemon Socialism: A pejorative term for a form of government intervention in which govt. subsidies go to weak or failing firms, with the effective result being that the govt. (and thus the taxpayer) absorbs part or all of the recipient’s losses. In other words, the company gets to keep it’s profits, but it’s losses are shifted to the taxpayer. Such payments may be made with the intent of preventing further, systemic damage to what otherwise might be considered a free marketplace. 2008 may be described as Lemon Socialism, the pejorative arises from the belief among free market economists that in a functional free market, failing companies will be replaced by better functioning companies in response to market demand. While receiving Government bailouts, companies such as Goldman Sachs and others, continued giving bonuses to their employees, and in fact had never halted the practice even during the panic. In Iceland, Lemon Socialism is known as “The Devil’s Socialism”, and was rejected by the citizens of Iceland after the collapse. I think there is food for thought here.

    • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 10:00 pm #

      Thatcher [the old creep] may have coined it.

    • benr February 14, 2019 at 4:14 pm #

      Or in other terms Socialize risk and privatize profit.

  45. FincaInTheMountains February 11, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

    This is absolutely amazing!

    After watching the four main Sunday’s political broadcasts of the week, for the first time I was unable to extract anything significant from them.

    And this is after a week, during which the United States almost got itself into the new Bay of Pigs, maybe even new Vietnam, the Civil War 2.0 began to shoot a little on the streets of New York, and the President of the United States delivered his most significant speech on behalf of the union of his supporters (Red World Project) with the Bush clan (White World Project in black polka dots), that is, almost on behalf of the ideologically unified West, opposing the West, united by Clinton madness, as it turns out representing the very essence of the Black World Project.

    And all I keep hearing is Clinton Madness.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Ol' Scratch February 11, 2019 at 2:56 pm #

      White World Project in black polka dots

      Hold on now just a minute there, Finc. Now we’re adding polka dots to the equation too? Have you perhaps gone PLAID?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:30 pm #

        Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini.

        Bikini was named after the island Bikini where the Atom Bomb was tested. A well rounded girl like Gidget in “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini” is a Bomb thrown at the masculine mind.

        Damn those Gay fashion designers! And those tribal textile companies!

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:20 pm #

          Sung by Neil Sedaka, said to be the biggest flamer in Vegas, once Liberace died.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 8:55 pm #

            She wasn’t a bad looking woman in her youth, but the more they have in the beginning, the worse they look in the end, much like tattoos. Maybe you’re right, maybe Satan is in charge down here. Not for nothing is he called King of the World. You pay now or play later; all enjoyment being merely on credit to be paid with interest.

        • S M Tenneshaw February 14, 2019 at 11:57 pm #

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXSUEU7ISfQ

          ////////////////////////////////////////
          Atom Bomb Baby: The Five Stars [1957]
          .
          .
          .
          Atom bomb baby, loaded with power
          Radioactive as a TV tower
          A nuclear fission in her soul
          Loves with electronic control
          ////////////////////////////////////////

          Down in the comments: “Let’s use Atomic bombs to solve world hunger?”

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 3:08 pm #

      After watching the four main Sunday’s political broadcasts of the week, for the first time I was unable to extract anything significant from them.

      This is a serious issue. I don’t care what happened this week this time. Being unable to extract anything significant from mainstream political broadcasts should be normal not an exception in any way. The fact that you had been getting messages previously indicates an aggressive course of medication may be in order. In other words. Your crazy!

      • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 5:20 am #

        You’re

  46. Myrmecia February 11, 2019 at 2:25 pm #

    Thanks for today’s big picture post, James.
    In the blur of events and the outpourings of opinionators about those events I know I can rely on you to provide much-needed focus and perspective.
    ===============
    If anyone reading this is not already supporting Jim through Patreon, I hope today’s post encourages them to sign up.

    • S M Tenneshaw February 14, 2019 at 11:59 pm #

      Jim, is that you?

  47. C’mon guys.

    It’s completely dishonest to pretend there are clear categorizations like ‘capitalist’, ‘communist’, ‘socialist’, etc.

    Everyone here is guilty of gross reductionism, and in order to avoid being a total idiot by using these weasel words, it would be better to provide more light than heat by discussing subjects in terms of actual factuals.

    Just try it. Thanks

    Now, in respect to Russia in 1917, whatever Lenin proposed was popularly received as preferable to the existing arrangement, which could only be described as a feudal society overlaid on nascent industrialism where a concept of social mobility was a dream and a great many people lived in a continuous generational state indistinguishable from abject slavery. And Marx was a world class thinker and did not kill a single human being, ever. The intellectual dishonesty of his detractors is not surprising though.

    What AOC/Markey propose are specific policy prescrpitions. Slandering them might feel good in the short term but any real political change will appear at first as apostacy. Social security was regarded the same way when it was first proposed. Or should I say, slandered.

    • K-Dog February 11, 2019 at 3:17 pm #

      ‘gross reductionism’ is …. gross

      Now, in respect to Russia in 1917, whatever Lenin proposed was popularly received as preferable to the existing arrangement, which could only be described as a feudal society overlaid on nascent industrialism where a


      In 1917, out of a total of 822 delegates in the Constituent Assembly, the Mensheviks had 248 delegates – far more than the Bolsheviks. However, people sitting around discussing the way ahead, did not equate to getting things done – and getting things done was Lenin’s main quality. He got things done as a result of meticulous organisation. The Mensheviks were skilled philosophers but failed to carry things out at a grass roots level.

      The Mensheviks also had a major internal weakness. Their openness allowed Mensheviks to hold differing views to other Mensheviks within the party. Therefore there was open disagreement in the party that was not only tolerated but, in the spirit of democracy, encouraged. If the Mensheviks had one belief, it was the support of pure Marxism as laid down by Karl Marx in his publications.

      The Mensheviks also made a number of practical errors. While Lenin wanted to pull Russia out of World War One, the Mensheviks wanted Russia to continue fighting in this highly unpopular war.

      As the Bolsheviks became more popular with the working class in the major cities of Russia, so the Mensheviks became less popular. As one rose, the other had to decline. The Mensheviks also suffered from people in the party joining the Bolsheviks when it became obvious that they were winning over the people.

      In America, Russian history and Harry Potter are on the same shelf and it is not a top shelf.

      • I confess having a a cartoon of a pastiche of a concept of Historical Asia… in general

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:34 pm #

        Yes, the second revolution is always the kill shot. Thomas Paine wanted a French terror for America after we won our independence from England.

        And while the Jews were squabbling over who was going to take over after Lenin, Stalin, the “Wolfe of the Steppes” took it all. Take heart my brothers, they can be beaten. Putin did the same generations later.

        • S M Tenneshaw February 15, 2019 at 12:02 am #

          Drop dead.

    • revilo February 11, 2019 at 3:58 pm #

      How many people did Alfred Rosenberg kill, or Julius Streicher? Still wound up on the gallows. Marxism is only a popular movement in people’s imaginations. It is pure authoritarianism in reality.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:36 pm #

        Great point. The Nuremberg Trials were the abdication of a thousand years of Western Jurisprudence. We were reverted to an Asiatic form of savagery and revenge under a tattered cloak of respectability.

        • revilo February 12, 2019 at 2:47 pm #

          Bolshevik show trials.

        • SpeedyBB February 16, 2019 at 3:24 am #

          Adroit thinkers (with nothing to lose) like Göring managed to turn the tables on the hayseed lawyers the Americans brought in. Same thing in Tokyo: Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal pointed out the contradiction in the victors passing judgment on the vanquished, according to the rules of the victors.

    • Robert White February 11, 2019 at 11:34 pm #

      Wholeheartedly agree.

      RW

    • elysianfield February 12, 2019 at 11:20 am #

      ” And Marx was a world class thinker and did not kill a single human being, ever”

      SnakPak,
      You do know that Marx grew up in a family of means…even had servants. I once read that he “knocked up” one of the maids…refused to acknowledge the offspring….

      “From each, according to his ability….”

  48. Pucker February 11, 2019 at 4:09 pm #

    Why are primates so weird and superstitious?

    http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree

    “Mark Taylor, author of the popular book “The Trump Prophecies,” says everyone needs to brace for the battles ahead. Taylor says, “God stepped in in 2016 and put Donald Trump in office to hold off the New World Order agenda, basically. They had an agenda with a timeline. It’s written right there down on the Georgia Guide Stones. They are trying to push the agenda because they know they are in trouble. This wasn’t supposed to happen for a while yet. So, now, they are panicking. This is why you are seeing this stuff with the wall. This is why you are seeing all these elites starting to panic, and the panic is starting to set in because their global agenda has been denied by the Most High God as far as the timing is concerned. God is holding it off right now. So, they are trying to push their agenda ahead.”

  49. Pucker February 11, 2019 at 4:13 pm #

    The ancient Persians also believed that the Cosmos was a battleground between the Forces of Light and Darkness….

    “On the long talked about financial reset, Taylor says, “Is the debt connected to the abortion issue? I don’t know. . . . Trump has already come out and said he wants to ban late-term abortions. We are seeing this stuff playing out. He’s redoing the Supreme Court. Is there a connection? Yeah, I think there is, but the timing of that connection I don’t know. If God sees the heart of this nation and does away with the abortion issue, He’s going to say you know what, I see the heart of the people, and they are repenting on this and actively trying to get rid of Roe v. Wade. So, you know what, I am going to get rid of your debt.”
    Is it an accident that God picked a master of bankruptcy to be the current President in the White House? Taylor says, “I think it is not an accident, and I’ll go ahead and release this on your show: This is not the only Trump that is going to be in the White House. I think there is another Trump coming.”

    Taylor also continues to predict, “The mass arrests are coming. I wrote in November of 2015, ‘Time is up for those who are corrupt.’ It talked about how God was going to remove the Clintons. . . . You are going to see these people go to prison—period. You are going to see the mass arrests. How many arrests have taken place right now that we don’t even know about? It’s happening undercover right now. Are we fixing to go from a covert war to an overt war where you are now going to see it? . . . The point is, we have had thousands of arrests the mainstream media (MSM) has blacked out and we are not hearing about. People want to watch the fake news, and this is how they are getting their information and not listening to people on alternative media.”

    In closing, Taylor says, “I want to encourage people and tell them there is good stuff coming. We are seeing good stuff happening in this country right now, but we have got to be patient and stay in prayer. We’ve got to stay together and, for goodness sakes, stop the backbiting. We are not all going to agree on everything, but we have a common goal and that is to move God and the Kingdom of Heaven’s agenda forward. I totally believe Trump is part of Heaven’s agenda. Trump is moving Heaven’s agenda forward for America and the entire earth. . . . People need to start looking for the good God is doing on the earth right now. We have to stay . . . focused on the mission. God is trying to rescue the spiritually oppressed people of the earth . . .”

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Mark Taylor, author of the popular book “The Trump Prophecies.””

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:46 pm #

      Trump is just the shadow of the Coming King. At best his trumpeter. He will fulfill these prophecies, not Trump. Maranatha! Come quickly O Lord!

    • Walter B February 11, 2019 at 4:52 pm #

      I always watch Greg Hunter. He is one of the few sources of information that I utilize including this place. I saw that interview as well as the other Mark Taylor interviews. I am not sure how much faith I put into what he “prophesizes”, though I would certainly not deride him as false, not yet. I am all too aware that God can do absolutely anything that He chooses to do, including working to bring America back from the edge, but I am not so sure that He is or will. There is that free will thing you know.

      However I lack the ability to see the Big Picture enough to even guess if what I think about where the bulk of our nation is heading to make an educated opinion. The MSM has huge power over what we are allowed to perceive of what the majority feel, think and do. We are only allowed to see through a tiny slit and only in the direction that they choose. I understand there are many who are still decent and caring, but are there enough to make a difference and is there a way that they can act to implement change? I simply do not know.

      America, without a doubt still has a HUGE drug, alcohol and consumption problem and that alone cannot be good. So many Americans are so stretched to their limits in debt and decay of income and overextension of their collection of “stuff” that I just do not know. I hope we can come back. I hope we can change, but only time will tell.

    • BuckP February 11, 2019 at 10:22 pm #

      God, more than likely, cares less about countries, especially America, than he does the outcome of football games. Overlooking the fact, we were a one time slave state that committed genocide against our native inhabitants, we continue to kill innocent women and children with drone strikes and through our proxy, SA, in Yemen. Our illegal, phony war in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands. Prying babies from mothers who are fleeing murderous drug cartels and legally seeking asylum in our country is probably not something Our Savior would approve of. The Nazis thought God was on their side too. I once naively thought we were the good guys but now I don’t think we ever were.

      • benr February 14, 2019 at 4:21 pm #

        Pack up your bags and leave the whore of Babylon for a better country.
        You obviously loath the United States so leave.

  50. On the face of it, shovelling snow is a pointless task.

    For the average man (or woman, for that matter) “play” looks identical to abject labor of some kind or another.

    Emotional, Physical, or Mental, “labor” is distinguished from “play” by the amount of “fun” one directly experiences from it.

    It seems “fun” must be discounted entirely, if “play” is available, and the “labor” is not absolutely necessary.

    One can only conclude that most people have lost the ability to “play” entirely.

    Whatever else they are doing, clearly, its emisserating.

    This is perhaps why humans are uselessly trying to find an excuse not to have fun- call ti capitalism, communism, fascism…. in reality all “fun” takes is spare time.

    Therefore all work is theft; the most advanced stage of human societies is a cheerless adulthood.

    Some prescribed LSD- certainly alcohol tobacco and sugar have not worked.

    Perhaps PFOS will fortuitously be tuning up our brains, and not lodging inconveniently between two necessary brain cells.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:53 pm #

      Yes, Homo Faber (Man the Maker) destroyed the nascent Homo Ludens or Man the Player. Our Machines could set us free but alas we are in love with our chains; still monkeys wanting all the bananas, content to see our brother in chains while we are free. Content? Nay, loving it, such is our corruption. Thorstein Veblen said as much many decades ago. Marx is the lowest chakra, Freud the second or sexual charka but Adler was the Psychologist of the Third or Manipura, or the Desire for Power. That more than anything defines our Civilization. And to have Power to a Monkey Man means primarily having power over other Monkey Men.

      Who can forget that scene from Metropolis where the young Buddha ventures into forbidden areas of the city and meets the young Goddess bringing the proles into the light of day. Astonished, he asks who are they? She replies, They are your brothers and sisters.

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:22 pm #

        Jung-4th?

        • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:14 am #

          I guess so, that and up – though he gets confused after a while since he hasn’t experienced the higher stages. Maslow and his followers are better in some ways, along with the Transpersonalists. Woo Woo Wack Wack alert.

    • SpeedyBB February 16, 2019 at 3:31 am #

      I recently went shopping for clothes with someone I promised to help. A rare occurrence, as I am a creature of habit.

      What a huge amount of labor, human interaction, thinking and stress is the act of shopping. I had forgotten the tremendous investment of energy necessary to leave one’s work-space for three hours of doddering about a department store.

      No wonder people prefer to buy on line.

  51. In a way, you have to get dumber before you get smarter; they say failure is the way.

  52. Pucker February 11, 2019 at 4:29 pm #

    The ancient Greeks seemed to worship the Number 9. Alexander the Great sacrificed to Zeus for 9 days before attacking the Persians. What’s the Big Deal about the Number 9?

    I sacrificed a hog to Zeus once for 1 day, and it paid off Big Time….

  53. Pucker February 11, 2019 at 4:38 pm #

    Do any of you fellow Trans-Doomer CFNers know where I can score a good Collapse “Coo Coo Clock” with instructions to set it to go off when the Shit-Hits-the-Fan? Thank you

    • Pucker February 11, 2019 at 4:45 pm #

      “You can call me anything. Just don’t call me Late-for-Supper!”

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 5:00 pm #

      I’ll look into it. I have a problem too: I need a helmet to go with my chain mail. Do you know any hat makers who could make a hat around a helmet, say like the kind the British soldiers wore in WW1? Perhaps something like Steed had in the Avengers, that can be thrown like a Frisbee to hurt people if one is in a “tight spot”.

      Remember Alexandra? I callled her Emma Peel and she loved it. She was so much more fun than Green Alba. Things really are getting worse on all fronts. The Conqueror Worm is just another name for Entropy or vice versa.

      • GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 7:49 pm #

        “Perhaps something like Steed had in the Avengers, that can be thrown like a Frisbee to hurt people if one is in a “tight spot”.”

        Perhaps you could speak to Oddjob. He might have something for you.

        • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:46 am #

          Perhaps you could speak to Oddjob. He might have something for you.–that sounds as cryptic as what Janos would post.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:34 am #

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddjob

            Wiki is your friend, for such trivia.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:41 am #

            He could take yer ‘ead awf with one deft sidespin of ‘is titfer…

            https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/titfer

            To save you further confusion.

            ********

            “Oddjob’s hat

            “The television show MythBusters tested out the capabilities of Oddjob’s hat, testing whether or not it would have been able to decapitate a stone statue. It failed to do so, and the Mythbusters ultimately labeled it ‘Busted’.

            “Oddjob’s lethal hat was ranked tenth in a 2008 20th Century Fox poll for the most popular movie weapon, which surveyed approximately 2,000 films fans.”

            You’re welcome.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:42 am #

            I’m in whimsical mood today, but I really should do some work.

            This site is a terrible work-avoidance pit of temptation for the weak willed.

    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 7:01 pm #

      It’s an iphone app.

    • Easy, just arrange an alarm clock on a grid-connected smart phone to go off a few years after your life expectancy, and then you’re pretty much off the hook for everything. Why even prep?

      Party on Cheese Poof people

  54. seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 4:39 pm #

    Australia had not had a recession in 27 years, because China has not had one in 29 years. America has not had one in 10 years, 8 Obama year and 2 Trump years. With a little luck we can endure 2 more Trump years and then elect a tax the rich liberal who wants the country green by 2030. Despite the pathetic job of HRC of promoting them, green jobs are the future and there’s no going back to coal. Obamacare was a good start. It taxed the rich to pay for healthcare for the rest of the country. But it was just a start. Starting in 2020, lower the Medicare age by 5 years. In ~12 years you would cover the entire population, with the most at risk getting help the soonest. This would gradually increase the load on Medicare and lower the load on private healthcare. Provide healthcare would have time to respond and paint government healthcare as one rung up from bleeding with leeches, allowing them to stay in their parasitic business. This would begin to reign in healthcare costs until a new system would emerge that would cover everybody. Tax the rich to the tune of double what it costs to cover the poor. That way when a Republican happens to cheat his way into office with the retarded electoral college, there is enough there to outlast him until Americans wake up again 4 years later. This would condition Americans to the benefits of government run healthcare and prevent Republicans taking us back to the Dark Ages every 4 – 8 years. Socialism works. I’ve never heard of it bankrupting the rich. I’ve never even heard of it coming close to doing that. All I ever hear is how it’s going to do that.

  55. Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 4:44 pm #

    We’re gonna need Pecker Woods not Whigs or Wiggers.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  56. Science, math and physics makes it easy to do things like creating new ways to kill people at a distance. But science, math, and physics also makes it easy to figure out how not to do that.

    Blowback is something you never expect.

    Its not like humanity didn’t understand that creating an indestructible molecule wouldn’t get into people’s bodies.

    What happened was, our power structures were ready made to favor the production of it. The “Environment” didn’t exist as far as they were concerned.

    Well, shit, now it does. But the open-ended laws are still in place in which Fluorinated compounds can be produced (with perfect knowledge where they will end up).

    Theres STILL time for you lead-brained monkeys!

    A global, regulatory agency: UN Environmental Protection Agency.

    The only way PFOS levels will be suppressed is if their manufacture is suppressed.

    We will need the state security apparatus of all the world’s jurisdictional mandates.

    I honestly think it could reduce illegal production by 99%.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 11, 2019 at 5:03 pm #

      But what can replace “Plastics”? And Mrs Robinson is always lifting her dress high for a young Dustin Hoffman. He has aged but she has not. Her secret? Plastics.

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:31 pm #

        What of the Nuremberg trials?

        And an author explained the potlaches or whatever they were
        as the Rich PW Indians arriving by canoe.
        The slaves would lie on shore and be crushed by boat.
        It was a ‘see how rich I am? I kill slaves as I make a grand entrance to the party.’ Rich indians, not whole tribes.

      • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:34 pm #

        Do you agree the Whites freeze to death while Muslims live high on a pork free hog in UK?

        https://fullfact.org/news/muslims-uk-viral-poster-factchecked/

        • Britain was undone by sausage, perfume, ale and coal smog

          My hypothesis.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 10:28 am #

            Small nations that use up all their resources, then over-project themselves, are simply undone by time. And our old friend entropy, which eventually undoes everyone.

        • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 7:00 pm #

          Janos say “Free pork make voter very happy.”

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 10:30 am #

            Everyone else say ‘if God had meant us to be vegetarians, he wouldn’t have made bacon’.

      • There has to be the suggestion of sex to sell a movie ticket. The concept of plastics has been used to get laid, I have no doubt. Even the noted Native American actor Dustin Hoffman, in Little Big Man got some nookie.

        Alas, in reality the general nookie is well past its due date, and everyone is screwed by other means

  57. malthuss February 11, 2019 at 5:14 pm #

    GreenAlba February 11, 2019 at 3:24 pm #

    There shouldn’t have been any British colonialists in India, ninny. But there were.

    / I get that you are scottish or live in Scotland.
    I dont blame you for the mess UK is in.
    I agree w Janos comment about ‘muslims to the front of the line’
    DO YOU DISPUTE WHAT HE POSTED?

    My facts about Lee Rigby were just a pointer in the Whites to the back of the line, [or 6 feet under] mussies first. No direct connection.
    ON TO MORE HUMOROUS THINGS–
    You might get a kick out of this lass and her not White great grandma.
    Her grand dad was born in India to a soldier and his Indian woman.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjFxaH9Sdjo&t=397s

    • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 10:32 am #

      Malthuss, if you hear the distant sound of contented snoring, it’s me…

      zzzzzzzzzzzzz………

      • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:47 am #

        And our old friend entropy, which eventually undoes everyone…

        and you are living proof of that. The mummy lives.

        • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:59 am #

          Aw, nobody’s called me that since my kids were little 🙂

          • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:20 pm #

            This site is a terrible work-avoidance pit of temptation for the weak willed.

            aint that the truth.

          • seawolf77 February 13, 2019 at 6:52 pm #

            Not exactly true. You are typing while thinking. That is always good practice, and considering some of the posts I’ve read here, people need more of it.

  58. Its self-evident that America has the ability to market a brand of canned food, that with a few changes in ingredients from cat or dog food, make a cut-rate “Human Chow” that would create 1) Enormous profit and 2) Solve a problem vexing good will.

    HUMAN CHOW

    PORK, BEEF BROTH, TOMATOES, CALCIUM CHLORIDE, CITRIC ACID, KIDNEY BEANS, PINK BEANS, BEEF, RABBIT, DEHYDRATED ONIONS, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF FOLLOWING: SPICES, JALAPENO PEPPERS, SALT, FLAVOURING, CORNSTARCH, SUGAR, DEHYDRATED BELL PEPPERS, CHICKEN BROTH, DEHYDRATED CHILE DE ARBOL PEPPERS, PAPRIKA

    All rights reserved. (c) 2019
    The Saving The World by Making America Great Again, LLC.
    Muncie, IN 47925

    • JohnAZ February 11, 2019 at 6:56 pm #

      How about soylent green? I would like to see an ingredients list on it.

    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 6:59 pm #

      It’s called Spam. The Russians loved it during WW2. They would make a stew from it, eat it with bread and vodka.

      • My BIGGER (ahem) point was that, world hunger could be solved with a Manhattan project of canned food, and that since the US runs the UN we could essential finance become WORLD HEROES whilst simultaneously generating ENORMOUS PROFITS

        The thing about Politics is that everyone is fooled that policy can’t be created without it

        ARE YOU LISTENING DONALD TRUMP?!?!?

      • BackRowHeckler February 11, 2019 at 7:44 pm #

        When US VP Henry Wallace toured the Kolyma Death Camp in Siberia in 1944 as a special guest of Comrade Stalin, he noted the guards were well fed on American spam, Campbells pork and beans, and canned hams from Iowa. Those Gulag guards were eating pretty good courtesy of Uncle Sam!

        brh

        • malthuss February 11, 2019 at 10:02 pm #

          Disgusting. Have you read, ‘With God in Russia’?

          • Are you kidding? The first ones into the breach when the wall came down were KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut and they were welcomed with legs spread wide open

            To be saved from that diet of stale potatoes, vodka, and turnip soup!

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:42 am #

            Really????? Another reference to legs spread wide open. Good to know its always on your mind. I am gonna go hurl now onto the latest edition of NYT. Thanks!!!

  59. 100th Avatar February 11, 2019 at 5:53 pm #

    What the socialists are seeing is unfettered greed and wealth accumulation sanctioned by the state. Leading to hollowed out industrial areas, decrepit small towns, dilapidated strip malls, rotting suburbs, and the armies of rotten toothed tweakers that inhabit them.
    Certain cities have become nothing but playgrounds for the international superrich. In their $250 million apartments.
    I won’t shed a tear.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:34 am #

      You won’t shed a tear for what? Have you ever truly ran into a tweaker? They may make you shed a tear when they hold you up for a five dollar bill.

      • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 1:45 pm #

        For a taxed-to-death 1%er

  60. Luhrenloup February 11, 2019 at 6:53 pm #

    I moved to my new home in the city this weekend. So I’m trying to figure out the cardinal points and the best spot to put my plants. I ask 3 people in the building, one an old guy in his seventies. No one knew their cardinal points. Folks have become completely detached from the earth we live on at this point in our evolution, and are utterly at the mercy of a fabricated reality whose only value is tied to the money in one’s pocket and what can purchased with it. There is so much junk available that whatever is in the pocket cannot possibly cover wants, needs. Where to get more has become a higher priority than what direction the sun rises and sets.
    It is going to be very scary when the crash occurs, and it’s coming.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 6:57 pm #

      You r iphone has a compass app.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:30 am #

      True dat. Who needs to know where east and west are when most people don’t have the first clue about basic geography to begin with. Like, there is app for that.

      • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 8:51 am #

        I don’t know how to change a buggy wheel either. I don’t lose any sleep over it.

        • elysianfield February 12, 2019 at 11:29 am #

          “I don’t know how to change a buggy wheel ”

          Wolfie,
          Then where the hell were you when they were teaching “buggery” in tech school?

        • Luhrenloup February 12, 2019 at 1:19 pm #

          Seawolf:
          And that is what keeps you shackled to society’s illusionary realm. They will provide you with what they choose, which is not necessarily what you need. That’s how control works.

  61. Its February and the orphans on the Border are shivering under their wet blankets in the Arroyo.

    Will the Orthodox Church sell a few Gold and Emeralds from the Gilded High Chair to send a few metric tons of HUMAN CHOW and Authentic Siberian Firewood?

    How about the Pope? Have they sent a Papal Barge of Pop up Campers, Olive oil, and Bushels of Pizza??

    WHEN WILL WE BE EXPECTING THE MASSIVE EFFORT TO SAVE THE BORN AND UNBORN GOD’S CHILDREN, WIMMEN AND CHILLUN AT DE BORDER??????? ?

    HOW DOES THE DEVIL HAVE SO MUCH POWERRRRR!!?

    • capt spaulding February 11, 2019 at 7:57 pm #

      You seem to have mixed black dialect (chillun at de border), with California girl (so much powerrrrr) , I guess America really is the great melting pot.

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:26 am #

        Lol – Or maybe multiple personalities? Professional distractor for sure right Mr. Slim. I still hate your stupid paper!!!!!

        • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:48 am #

          blog–crimes of the times.

      • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 10:38 am #

        Perhaps ‘he’ is a black California girl?

        • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:49 am #

          The girls there are brown, yellow, black and white.

    • CancelMyCard February 11, 2019 at 10:42 pm #

      God,

      You are all completely Nuts.

      Totally completely fucked in the head.

  62. seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 8:06 pm #

    The far left may bankrupt you, but you can recover from that. The problem with the far right is that they will kill you.

    • revilo February 11, 2019 at 10:19 pm #

      I guess if they starve you to death, it’s technically not a kill.

    • seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 10:36 pm #

      WTF. In America you gourd heads.

      • revilo February 11, 2019 at 11:00 pm #

        Is “far left” ideology different elsewhere? It’s all the same. Ideologies and their outcomes transcend and outlast nations.

      • revilo February 11, 2019 at 11:17 pm #

        A white kid stands his ground while some weirdo is beating a drum in his face. Into the wodchipper!! This is why we fight you idiots. Because you’re violent.

        https://www.rt.com/usa/449368-disney-producer-threatens-maga-kids/

        • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:52 am #

          old news.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:23 am #

      Now you know that is weak seawolf. Step up your game!!! I’m pretty sure the far left was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions in Russia and China. Mao and Stalin have never been called “far right” for a reason.

      • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 8:49 am #

        Oh please calling Stalin and Mao far left is like calling David
        Duke a civil rights activist. You Trumptards will reach for anything, but you couldn’t find your ass with 2 hands and a flashlight.

        • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 9:46 am #

          Wow you are on a roll my friend ;-). David Duke is in fact a civil rights activist. But see, he is a civil rights activist for Whites. Which means he is nada in your book. Rather than flinging verbal feces all day you need to do some critical thinking. Put the cap on, meditate, and swallow that big pill of knowledge. It does hurt going down but feels so good when it gets into your system. Call me when you are truly woke, not fake woke.

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 9:53 am #

            That’s my point exactly. You made it yet failed to see the analogy. Yes Mao and Stalin are left, but they are not reflections on liberalism, nor are they progressives. To say they are is such a stretch as to call David Duke a civil rights activists, which he is, but for whites. I didn’t know I would have to sing it for you to get you to understand. Next time I’ll leave the chords and lyrics underneath the post.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:21 am #

            Well maybe music is your calling? But you know Mao and Stalin were ultra-progressive. You just don’t want to accept it because it tarnishes the otherwise cutesy term “progressive”. Sounds so futuristic and exciting.

          • revilo February 12, 2019 at 10:30 am #

            I feel like sub-par minds like seawolf can be completely seduced by nice words like progressivism. I like progress, therefore progressivism!! In my experience, progress is an illusion, or worse, the substitution of what worked with what sounded good (see Thomas Sowell). When society fails to reign in “progress,” you wind up with the Khmer Rouge.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:56 am #

            Seawolf is very intelligent and savvy. He is dedicated to the progressive outlook in my opinion. He has his reasons for that allegiance. But I agree with you revilo that progress is just an idea and can really mean whatever the person holding that idea believes it is. My idea of progress is radically different from seawolf’s. And you are very correct that the push for certain forms of “progress” has been the death of many people.

  63. seawolf77 February 11, 2019 at 9:51 pm #

    After being unable to re-stock the Russian army with T-14, the new unstoppable main battle tank, Putin bought 70 T-34 from Laos and instead made the movie T-34.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq55pi7KC64
    The legend of the T-34 grows, even if the trailer is a bit much.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:17 am #

      That was intense!

  64. Robert White February 11, 2019 at 9:52 pm #

    As the resident Grumpy Marxist I beg to differ on the fact that Marx hypothesized a Marxian Revolution which will manifest to be the precursor stage to worldwide Communism instead of faux Capitalism.

    Once sovereign Debt-to-GDP blows the Central Bank Model to Hell on a handcart everyone will gladly accept my Marxist rule.

    I will be a much nicer dictator than Joseph Stalin or George W. Bush.

    I promise & swear to God!

    RW

    • Robert White February 11, 2019 at 11:17 pm #

      Not a problem when the central banks implode.

      https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-11/one-trader-rants-its-time-central-bankers-stop-bullshitting-admit-they-failed

      tick, tick, tick, tick….

      Don’t forget the Debt Clock, eh.

      RW

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:11 am #

      Lol ok. So do you really believe in God or is that tongue-in-cheek? Hmmm a spiritual Marxist is an interesting notion. Better yet, how about a Communist Warlock?

      • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 10:06 am #

        Grumpy Marxist shaman.

        RW

        • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:18 am #

          Why so grump :-)?

          • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:53 am #

            His side lost and he is past 40?

          • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 10:55 am #

            A _Grumpy Marxist_ is a pissed off frustrated Marxist because of the lack of real Communist rule in the West.
            Transnationalism & Casino Capitalism have impeded worldwide social growth of civilization. Man cannot live by bread alone. Civilization cannot live by lust for greed and debt accumulation that is never paid down. Central Banks cannot balance the balance sheet and neither can the lowly serf that caters to the Feudal Lords.

            The .001% own the entirety of wealth throughout the world in aggregate. The poor lowly serfs have no cultural or spiritual meaningfulness in their lives due to the fact that the .001%
            have misappropriated all the renewal that was supposed to be allocated to the serfs. Disposable Income Gains throughout the population are nil over the last 30 years. Discretionary Income Gains are less than nil over the last 30 years. People can no longer afford to buy automobiles as the auto manufacturers raise their prices beyond the Central Bank rate of Inflation that is purposely held low around 2% so that inflation does not become a problem for the Central Banks or their cronies.

            The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer still to this day. Soon we will have an entire world of poor people that are starving like the people in Venezuela.

            As a Marxist I will strip mine the .001% for my monetary renewal that they appropriated over my lifetime.

            My God is a God of war!

            😐

            RW

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:01 am #

            Ok, well that is sounding good to me. But do you believe in national identities or are you a believer in some sort of global system?

            Hmmm, “My God is a God of war!” Life is war, whether we want it to be or not, so I feel you on that too.

          • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 11:40 am #

            Communist rule worldwide is the only chance mankind has left due to the up and coming transnationalist rule whereby companies like UBER continue strip mining the poor when the banks have abandoned them outright.

            The company town model of serfdom never worked at all.
            The company store has everyone in debt peonage via credit cards that charge 26% Interest Rates whilst the rich get free money from the spigot at the FED.

            Worldwide central management of all governments & sovereigns is the only way to avoid thermonuclear hot war and thermonuclear winter.

            The choice is stark between war & living in some semblance of peace. Peace to me is a dead banker!

            RW

  65. Pucker February 11, 2019 at 10:15 pm #

    Also, it’s bad for one’s image when the French cops shoot peaceful Yellow Vest protestors in the head with rubber bullets.

    “Most of us assume that the future will more or less resemble the present, but this is not necessarily so. In a long and eventful life, I have witnessed many periods of what I call radical disequilibrium. We are living in such a period today. The next inflection point will be the elections for the European Parliament in May 2019. Unfortunately, anti-European forces will enjoy a competitive advantage in the balloting. There are several reasons for this, including the outdated party system that prevails in most European countries, the practical impossibility of treaty change, and the lack of legal tools for disciplining member states that violate the principles on which the European Union was founded.

    The EU can impose the acquis communautaire (the body of European Union law) on applicant countries, but lacks sufficient capacity to enforce member states’ compliance.

    The antiquated party system hampers those who want to preserve the values on which the EU was founded, but helps those who want to replace those values with something radically different. This is true in individual countries and even more so in trans-European alliances.

    The party system of individual states reflects the divisions that mattered in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the conflict between capital and labor. But the cleavage that matters most today is between pro- and anti-European forces.”

    George Soros

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • revilo February 11, 2019 at 10:33 pm #

      Soros in 7 minutes. Pretty astonishing profile.

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SGWizajL7tA

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 1:03 am #

        An international criminal, psychopath, and Mammon worshipper.

    • peakfuture February 11, 2019 at 10:35 pm #

      There’s this one bit in the Green New Deal FAQ which really raises an eyebrow:

      “economic security for all who are unable or *unwilling* to work”

      So, if you are unwilling to work, you can still have economic security? How is that possible?

      I understand wanting economic security as a right, but without a corresponding responsibility, this seems absurd.

  66. FincaInTheMountains February 11, 2019 at 10:34 pm #

    The Man with Whom the US Civil War 2.0 Will Begin

    Lately, the New York rumors for me personally are no longer rumors, but tips for searching in Google, and therefore I am wary of publishing them without checking, not only in Google, but also on the various forums.

    Trump’s adviser Roger Stone was arrested just because he told another Trump adviser that he had heard rumors that Julian Assange had materials exposing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee in counterfeiting the primaries before WikiLeaks actually published that. He happened to be exactly on target.

    The arrest turned out to be very loud, and without looking at my notes from yesterday, I can recall at least three rumors related to this arrest.

    But in this post I want to tell about the results of checking another rumor that the prosecutor’s office of Southern District of New York is furious with journalists, who filmed and uploaded to the Internet a video about the 33-year-old prosecutor Thomas McKay, who 5 days ago issued subpoenas for the entire inaugural committee of Donald Trump.

    https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thepenn.org/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/c9/7c931fe8-41da-11e8-bf63-ffdb483bd1b6/5ad546d6ac780.image.jpg?resize=750%2C579

    I will not tell you the content of these rumors, I will only say that the name of the post is connected with this rumor and with the fact of the aforementioned rage of the Southern District of New York Prosecutor’s Office. The fact is that this is not an ordinary prosecutor’s office, as it supervises Wall Street with all the ensuing consequences, and it also has jurisdiction over all the affairs of Donald Trump, which took place before he became president, as before he was registered precisely in Southern New York.

    The prosecutors of this office were the former head of the FBI Comey and the famous mayor of New York, who led the rescue after 911 and now is the chief legal adviser to President Trump Rudi Giuliani.

    And the difference between Rudy Giuliani and the director of the FBI Comey, who came from the same prosecutor’s office, is due to the fact that in 2001, Hillary Clinton became the senator from New York for eight years.

    And the rumor, which I don’t talk about, displaying it in the title of the post, is important because apparently Hillary Clinton in the power struggle no longer relies on Special Prosecutor Mueller, who, after the appointment of William Barr, will be accountable to him completely and fully, and all of her bets now is on the Southern District of New York Prosecutor’s Office and particularly Thomas McKay.

    A senate vote for the candidacy of the US Attorney General William Barr should be this week, and if today Republican congressmen do not agree with Congress Democrats about financing the construction of the Great American Wall on the border with Mexico, then on Friday the federal government will again stop being financed and then next Monday Trump is likely to declare a state of emergency, and William Barr will be the Attorney General of the United States.

    • CancelMyCard February 11, 2019 at 10:43 pm #

      God,

      You are all completely Nuts.

      Totally completely fucked in the head.

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 12:49 am #

        LOL – well you are here too so I am thinking you have some screws loose as well. And hey, sometimes crazy motherf*ckers are really fun to hang with.

  67. The average per capita, time spent daily, online, has now reached a full 6 hours, 49 minutes

    No signs of stopping, either.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 12:45 am #

      How much time did you spend online today :-)? Seems like you have had some decent screen time so far.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:23 am #

      It’s the only place free speech exists anymore.

    • It’s par, for sure. I’m trying to compete in the global e-conomy.

      I occasionally have spontaneous urges to buy more ways to stay connected for no other reason than I was heavily programmed to favor that feeling of immanent technological prosthetic enhancement. Those feelings are real, and in a world where all communication between humans is mediated through the internet, an important aspect of life.

      For instance consider the profile portrait. You can gaze at it for a full 5 seconds. Try holding that gaze with a stranger you’ve never met. Impossible.

      The vestigial hominoid reactions of aggression and threat are too unmediated an emotion

  68. SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 12:42 am #

    I guess I am missing something because it seems like the US is already a socialist country. But it’s a weird and perverted socialism where only the very poor and very rich receive handouts and freebies and the middle subsidizes those handouts and freebies. And for their trouble, the middle gets social security and medicare. But from what I have heard you never get back what you put in. And since corporations are rich “people” too, they get welfare. And don’t the corporations seem to be doing really well? They get to hire foreign workers so they can pay them less, all the while neglecting any pretense of responsibility to society. So no wonder the middle is disappearing. And the very rich who are well represented in “Congress” are totally cool with the middle vanishing. Then it will just be a world of overlords and slaves. Perfect for business!!! A beautiful patchwork of opulent palaces and luxurious enclaves surrounded by thick and tall WALLS patroled by armed private security mixed with expanses of sqalid, dilapidated, and very dangerous shanty towns. A Brasil do Norte. But there are always curve balls, black swans, and Robin Hoods with armies of guerilla fighters so you craven rich bastards may not want to get your hopes too high.

    • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 8:46 am #

      There’s also Judas Goats that will make sure you go to the slaughter quietly. if I had to put money on Donald Trump being a black swan or a Judas Goat, well’s let’s just say Bahh! He he! Bahhh! He he!

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 9:39 am #

        And you believe that you would escape such a fate? Ah hah!!!! Then the joke is on you. From the sum of your posts I can see you are a true believer in the Democrat Party, and thus the “system”. Good luck with that. When will you open your eyes. I have been trying to wake you up for like three months and you won’t get your lazy butt out of bed!!!! I guess Nancy shot you with a stun gun or something.

        • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 9:48 am #

          At least I wasn’t stupid enough to put my faith in a known con man. That ‘s when I realized my fellow Americans would believe anything, shit for brains assholes that they are.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:18 am #

            LOL dude you are so lost. They are all cons. But your attitude proves my point. We aren’t fellow citizens. Our interests don’t even overlap. You want what you want and I want what I want so there isn’t a point to pretend we are one anymore. Let’s make our breakup official :-).

  69. Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:17 am #

    https://www.amren.com/features/2019/02/trump-betrays-his-base/

    One of my favorite White Nationalists writers shares the bad news.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 9:33 am #

      I am so disgusted with what he has done recently. And to think that I was so devoted to him and his ideas. I am glad you checked me on that a while back. What happened? Did he lie to us or was it that he meant what he said at the time and once he got into office, like most politicians, he decided to go in the opposite direction?

      • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:54 am #

        He is in WH for 2 years.

        G5
        chemtrails
        Imperialism

        • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:06 am #

          I love your cryptic messages :-). But I want you to tell me more. Are you saying he is only in the WH for two years because of the people who are behind 5G, chemtrails, imperialism?

          • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:53 pm #

            I dont know what he/ DT knows about Pizzagate, The Clintons and Haiti, G5 etc.

            And if he does know facts, he isnt making good changes.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 1:21 pm #

        What’s that Bible verse, The Heart speaks out of its fullness or something like that? Spontaneously – it wasn’t in the written speech he was reading on the teleprompter – he said he wanted the level of legal immigration higher than ever before. He’s not our guy and never was. Legal immigration is deadly. Once he seemed to wish for more oversight into it or even setting up a standard like Canada had and Australia has. But then he goes and says he wants “these” people – meaning uneducated, fast breeding Central Americans, to come in record numbers. So he’s all over the place on the issue – but he’s clear that he wanted IT and he wants it greatly expanded, probably because that’s what the Plutocrats want. Not our guy. Our hopes were in vain.

  70. FincaInTheMountains February 12, 2019 at 6:46 am #

    There is no Deep State in Russia, it is all in plain sight, but the “deepness” is seated in the Russian people.

    The “Deep Russian people” are always in their minds, inaccessible to sociological polls, campaigning, threats, and other methods of direct study and influence.

    Understanding who they are, what they think and what they want, often comes suddenly and late, and not to those who can do something about it.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  71. FincaInTheMountains February 12, 2019 at 8:33 am #

    A year and a half ago, I made a repost of an article that struck me not only with the wonderful performance of melodramatic song by a 8-year-old girl, not only with the amazing prediction of the Ukrainian tragedy, which only now began to unfold before our eyes, but also with the remarkable intersection of the words of hereditary European predator’s , that “Russia does not know its boundaries (borders)” with the words of the Vladimir Putin, who has not yet allowed the predator’s scenario to come true, but said: The Russia’s borders do not end anywhere.

    Meanwhile, these words expressed the author’s amazing assumption about the essence of the ideological confrontation between Fascism and Nazism, which is likely to become the main engine of the historical process in the 21st century and has already become the engine of the Cold Civil War in the United States.

    That is, cold for now.

    That is why I am publishing this song in a separate post, so that my readers could listen to her separately and think about what this girl sings and why it affects the deep strings of Western European consciousness.

    In the end, it only seems that art is something that has no direct relation to life, what rich women do in their salons, while their predatory husbands impose order (or rather, ordnung) in the surrounding world, of which we are all members.

    I highly recommend listening to the song at the end and thinking about what kind of culture this song could appear in and why the “natives” react to it like this when an 8-year-old girl sings.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D0e0miMSI0

    Bang-bang will be heard over Ukraine for a long time. So far, only the first chords of this tune have been sounded. Girls in white wreaths it’s time to start learning the tune.

    Hereditary European predator accompanied by girls in white wreaths:
    https://imgprx.livejournal.net/2027867b86f8d538c014e9f587c567696a51cf39/JBDxf6Eo4sAPtYLu6_XLKa–w78dYqrp417lPuJSFxdlAHJkJJhNxDEDLjf1_uxhbadjxcqBCXWfDSZ6SWEPTKkbA3rXcxWo45Ol4D_Cx8U

    • FincaInTheMountains February 12, 2019 at 9:05 am #

      I am waiting for Putin to put forward demands for reparations to “European Predators” for a couple of trillion euros, so that they , bitches, would choke on their greed.

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 9:52 am #

        Are you posting from the Kremlin or from Tel Aviv?

        • FincaInTheMountains February 12, 2019 at 11:19 am #

          I am posting from Finca, which is high on the Mountain.

  72. JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 9:11 am #

    A challenge for all CFNers.

    I have started a book called “In the Shadows of a Presidency” by Daniel Estulin. He is researcher and foreign policy advisor to various groups including the foreign affairs ministry of Russia.

    It is a total eye opener along the same lines as The Long Emergency and puts a light on the workings of Trump against the global interests. It identifies the villains of the current world vs. USA situation and that the worst enemy of the American people is domestic.

    It has shocked me at the extent of the conspiracies. Finca, you especially would be interested. Or maybe you are Daniel Estulin?

    • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 10:08 am #

      The first statement is that the financial elite of the world have been feeding their international leverage problem by using the US Federal Reserve to “roll the presses”. The taxpayers of the US are financing the foibles of the global finance idiots. The people of the US are losing their economy as dollars flow overseas. The leaders in the US of the policies promoting this capital movement are, surprise, HRC and her dupes in the Democratic Party. If these policies are slowed or stopped, the global bankers start running into bankruptcy problems. Hence the near panic caused by the election of Trump over their poster child, HRC.

      The Deep State has formulated an anti Russia and China propaganda campaign in the US utilizing the intelligence community because?

      Russia, China and lately Japan are fighting the internationalist finance racketeers that the US Leftists are supporting. So we have sides now. The Deep State of the US and the neo Liberal, his word, globalist financial groups, yep George Soros et al, against Putin, China Maybe Japan and yes, Trump. Putin, because he has forces in Russia aligned with the globalists that were set up by, you guessed it, HRC and her dupe, Obama.

      Sound Interesting? Read the book.

      • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 4:53 pm #


        The world is witnessing the end of the financial model we have been living with since the end of World War II. Estulin contends, “Now, it’s over, and you have nowhere to expand because we have reached the limits to growth. It’s not only in the United States. You see it in Canada. You see it in Latin America. You see it in Central America. You see it in Europe. . . . You see it in Russia. You see it in China. You see it in the Middle East. . . .
        Anywhere on the planet, you are seeing the collapse of the global order. The Bretton Woods model is now dead. . . . Today, there is not enough for everybody. It is like the film “The Highlander”– only one can survive. What we are seeing right now is the fight to the death. . . . We are seeing the fight for the control of emission of the U.S. dollar. Unless the liberal bankers get their hands on the printing machine, they are toast, and toast today means probably dead.”

        • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 6:09 pm #

          WTF are you talking about? Where is this fight to the death? You know you hear the collapse arguments, you buy into them, hell I own 100 lbs of silver down 50% no less. Even when it did in 2000 and 2008, it came back. We’re not going to destroy ourselves. It’s a Catholic fantasy, like SSL proselytizes. It’s a result of propaganda fed since birth that they are unable or unwilling to shake.

          • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 8:55 pm #

            Sea wolf

            Read the book and comment

            K dog is quoting from the book’s introduction. The US taxpayer is financing the world’s lousy financial discipline. If you understand how close the global finance fiasco is to collapse, you might appreciate Trump’s desire to separate us from it. That is what IS happening.

            And yes, the globalists are trying to tear down the US economy because a strong US economy means less dollars flowing to the globalists. Hopefully, a solution exists where both can exist together.

  73. SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:13 am #

    So at “Beto” O’Rourke’s “rally” last night in El Paso supporters waved MEXICAN flags while “Beto” gave his speech in a mix of English and Spanish. Why even pretend we are a united country anymore? We are not. Diversity, which is like a god of some kind to the Establishment has removed any semblance of a united national culture. Again, what is the point of the federal government? It doesn’t even fulfill it’s constitutional duty of enforcing our borders. And since we have no real border we aren’t even a real country. Even President Trump only cares about the welfare of non-White racial groups. Check his speeches. If every racial group can have everything they want I want a White president who talks to me in English and only caters to the needs of Whites. We need a country of our own. To hell with the fake and phony “United” States!

    • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 10:35 am #

      This Beto ORourke chap reminds me of the Canadian PM: down with anything wierd, foreign, bizarre, perverted, subversive, abstruse and anti Canadian. What’ he stand against: anything decent, Christian, white, traditional, dignified and conservative.

      Brh

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:45 am #

        So spot on Brh!!! And isn’t it funny that our dear “Beto” is a very White man who plays psychological Brown face each and every day. I don’t even believe he does it because he has White Guilt Disease. I think he is doing it solely for power.

        • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 10:52 am #

          It could be a form of mental illness. Check the DSM.

          Brh

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:02 am #

            LOL :-).

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 5:46 pm #

        A White Barack Obama.

    • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 10:43 am #

      Donald Trump is the best we’re going to get in that regard I’m afraid, SSL.

      After Trump, the deluge.

      Brh

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:51 am #

        It is disheartening Brh. But my prayer is that Trump is just a shadowy harbinger of the real Ruler to come. One way or another he is coming whether people believe it or not.

        • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 10:54 am #

          Don the Baptist? 🙂

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:03 am #

            That is exactly right Alba. And when the real deal is here he is going to be totally amazing ;-).

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 11:04 am #

            That is too cool. I’m sure Jesus is waiting to emerge from the lagoon at Mar-a Lago.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:05 am #

            And he is going to have women like me whispering in his ears telling him what we want and he is going to listen just like the real deal did. Girl power!

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:09 am #

            See? I brought a smile to your face, SSL 🙂

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:10 am #

            “And he is going to have women like me whispering in his ears telling him what we want ”

            Was that not a Mel Gibson film?

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 11:10 am #

            Ohhh the dead will rise and the blind will see! I can’t wait. It’ll be like the Walking Dead episode I never watched.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:15 am #

            You need to believe in miracles seawolf. Your worldview sounds so gray and sterile. You need some magic sweetheart. I still pray for you no matter how mean you can be and how hurtful your bites are.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:15 am #

            You often make me smile Alba!

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:22 am #

            Seawolf

            “That is too cool. I’m sure Jesus is waiting to emerge from the lagoon at Mar-a Lago.”

            Just don’t invite Salome.

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 11:32 am #

            Are you kidding. She ‘s the guest of honor.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 1:11 pm #

            Tell her she’ll find Don in the desert living on locusts and wild money.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

        That sounds familiar (After – Deluge), got the original quote?

        Trade you a painting: Elizabeth Butler’s “Remnants of an Army” showing one William Brydon as the sole survivor of 16,500 troops that evacuated Kabul.

        https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/negotiating-the-surrender-in-afghanistan/

        I mean the old Sea Chanty, One man left alive what put to sea with 75, is bad enough – but this is ridiculous. His body survived, but what of his mind and heart?

    • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 12:08 pm #

      They waived MEXICAN flags huh? Not just Mexican flags. They pulled out the MEXICAN flags! Jesus what’s this world coming to? MEXICAN flag waving Americans. I’m gonna have to email Stephen King. What a horror novel that would make.

      • $10 an hour is a solid middle class wage in Mexico. They are asserting their right to be America’s insourced labor force. That also means enjoying the benefits of being able to afford the car and the house in Mexico.

        This side of the border, why would you fly the US flag? For a wage earner of similar means without the ability to achieve anything like a middle class lifestyle, you don’t even own a flapole to raise it. If you are a member of the profit taking class, you’ll own a house in the suburbs. And since things are working or so well for you, you’ll fly the American flag.

        Which flag are you waving?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:36 pm #

        And what would happen if people pulled out American flags in Mexico at a rally? As Alex Jones said, If I was caught as an American citizen trying to vote in Mexico, the men would take me out and stomp me real good.

    • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 7:31 pm #

      SSL

      ““Beto” gave his speech in a mix of English and Spanish. Why even pretend we are a united country anymore? ”

      You do know that the Swiss cope with French, German, Italian and a smattering of Romansch? It doesn’t cause them to worry about the unity of their country. Maybe you’re just too big and different languages are neither here nor there.

  74. seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 10:33 am #

    We don’t live in castles anymore, with big walls and huge moats around them. We don’t have kings and queens anymore. We have progressed to the point where we don’t want them, don’t need them, are disgusted by them and what they represent. The people who want to bring them back live in the past, yearn for the past, romanticize the past. The past is the past. These are the best of times. You want a wall, build it around your house, your head, your car, your children’s schools, anything but around my country. I can compete with anybody. If I can’t I’ll adapt. I won’t cry and whine and take opiods and kill myself cause I’m such a blithering pussy. Grow up conservatives.

    • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 10:39 am #

      The Big Hollywood Libs have walls around their houses, high ones.

      How about Tom Steyer, is there a wall around his house, patrolled by armed security, video cameras pointed everywhere?

      Brh

      • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 10:56 am #

        I thought that you loved all Jews.
        You suck up to Bill, for instance.

        • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 11:04 am #

          malthuss

          Allow me to Scotsplain it to you. If you know 100 really horrible Jews, it’s fine to hate them, if you find hate to be a useful emotion. If you hate them because they’re horrible then you’re just wasting your time on hate. If you hate them because they’re Jews, you’re wasting your time on antisemitism.

          Hope that helps.

          This guy…

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rachman

          …was a really horrible Jew.

          Only people of low insight were turned into antisemites because of him. People of high insight got on with passing decent housing legislation.

        • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 12:16 pm #

          Bill is a fellow New Englander, a comrade like Ozone and Ripthunder.

          Brh

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:43 pm #

            So no assholes in New England? Ozone and Rip had a falling out. And do you and Ozone agree on everything? I think you disagree on much, so much that any conversation has to be very polite and constrained.

            You’re a nice guy, and maybe even a hard guy when you have to be (which I admire), but your mind tends to be mushy. Your nice gets in the way – just like most Americans. And I’m afraid that tendency will be fatal. I don’t hate “nice” per se – it has its place. But we have given it a far greater place than it deserves. The Organization Man is obsessed with it. Ditto women. Thus men who would be free are put into ever smaller and smaller boxes of acceptable discourse.

        • beantownbill. February 12, 2019 at 1:36 pm #

          It’s too bad, Malthuss, there’s no such thing as an anti-asshole pill. Then you’d have a chance to be a human being rather than a useless piece of shit. Oh, well, I can dream, I suppose.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 7:38 am #

            “It’s too bad, Malthuss, there’s no such thing as an anti-asshole pill. ”

            There’s no aap for that…

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 10:40 am #

      You actually mean you don’t live in a castle and have big walls. But all of the ultra-wealthy who have massive castle-like mansions surrounded by walls and armed security differ with you and laugh in your face. You may not believe in kings and queens but they still run your life baby. You just don’t realize you have an Elite running your life yet. LOL – your country?? What country??? There is no border so there is no country. Like KesaAnna says, it’s all just a map blob at this point. Super happy you adapt to the changing circumstances of the time. So do other people. “Conservatives” statistically do much better economically than “Liberals”. Too bad you have no heart for those who have issues in their lives and kill themselves with opioids. Easy to not have sympathy for others when you don’t have to see them on a daily basis. The addicts I have personally known in my life have all had liberal viewpoints. Again, when are you going to wake the fuck up????????

      • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 10:59 am #

        I said you could build walls around your house, trailer mansion, yatch, tent… anything you want to do. It’s a free country. Just don’t think for one second you get to determine the national policies of this country with your antiquated ideas. If you want a test of wills, well it just so happens Dems control the purse. Trump can hem and haw and look in his piggy bank if he want to. There ain’t gonna be no wall.

        • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 11:02 am #

          A very nice anti-American sentiment. Thank you.

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 11:07 am #

            It’s not anti-American. It is the most American of all sentiments. Check the Statue of Liberty. Trumptards don’t get to demonize Latin Americans for their problems. Natural gas killed coal. Trump can spout that El Paso lie all he wants. I’t s still a lie. Crime is fine. It’ll always be there, but it is manageable. Don’t blame it on brown people.

          • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:11 am #

            Hol’ up, hol’ up, hol’ up ok hol’ up Brown people deserve their countries too. But stay there. Don’t invade us just because you want to suck the well dry. Why do you support that? Is that because you prefer the Brown over everything else?

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 11:22 am #

            I want a world without walls. Isolationism does not work, has never worked, and will never work- with the possible exception of Japan, i’ll give you that one.

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 11:32 am #

            >>> Check the Statue of Liberty.

            LOL. As with AOC, sea-jizz doesn’t understand the difference between a plaque on a statue and actual USA law.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 3:02 pm #

            Since America is about nothing but immigration, immigrants are the essence of America – and thus more American than “Americans”. In other words, what America is, it isn’t.

            And into this gaping ideological Maw, they hope to slide all Nations and Peoples. Someday all nations will be in Mordor, and BE Mordor. Only once all life boats are capsized, will Sea, El, and Alb be “happy”.

            “Resistance is futile. You will be absorbed” – Seaborg.

          • GreenAlba February 12, 2019 at 3:36 pm #

            Point me to a comment of mine that says you shouldn’t have proper borders. Ta.

        • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:08 am #

          Right I know, you are happy with the invasion then I assume?

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 11:43 am #

            It’s not an invasion, it’s a marathon. You invoke my feelings for hillbilly heroin addicts, now I invoke your’s for refugees seeking asylum.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 1:12 am #

            At least you admit your bias and racism.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 2:57 pm #

        Or like when the Liberal politicians rave against guns while surrounded by their gun thugs.

        The Left isn’t anti-gun – it’s anti ordinary citizens having guns.

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:32 pm #

          excellent point.
          do as we say, not as we do.

    • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 11:00 am #

      Everything your internationalist neo liberals want is the feudallization of the world.

      With lots of the castles and moats you bemoan

      Your diatribes do not even make sense anymore.

      • revilo February 12, 2019 at 1:48 pm #

        The 2016 electoral map was straight out of Hunger Games. A handful of blue population centers in a sea of red. Then when it didn’t go their way, the inevitable call to end the electoral college. For the sake of progress, you see.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 3:10 pm #

          So true. My other self is both wise and possesses the gift of saying much with few words. Concision! Or is it conciseness? Both seem to be real words as I get no red lines. Men on battle fronts have advanced thru the ranks on the clarity of their dispatches.

          In contrast, the great Theologian, Reginald Garriggou-LaGrange, said of his pupil, the future John Paul ll, writes much but says little.

    • When you realize that adaptation is the problem not the solution you’ll have graduated, c-wolf

  75. Walter B February 12, 2019 at 11:44 am #

    While everybody can want what they want or prefer what they prefer, it defies all logic, at least to me why anyone would want to take all of the different diversities in the world and jumble them up into one big homogenous mess of a shit sandwich. A world without borders and free movement for anybody and everybody means that the problems and the problem people from one place become the problem and the problem people for all. I suppose it is will keep the law enforcement people busy though I cannot see how that would be a good thing. Perhaps it would cut down on the need to travel and see the sights since eventually it will all be the same wherever you go, but the biggest problem I see is that it will destroy individuality. Perhaps that is the plan.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 12:31 pm #

      Walter, if you’re looking in …

      You mentioned the Henry rifle.

      The (new) Henry rifle company is making that gun again and its identical to the original. The company bought one manufactured in 1862 and copied it to perfection in that even screws are interchangeable. Well there is one difference: in 1862 it was chambered for .44 rimfire, which was updated to .357 magnum.

      Believe it or not this gun is being made in Bayonne, NJ, probably not far from you.

      Its a thing of beauty, a piece of industrial art, the perfect fusion of form and function and fit.

      Brh

      • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

        Cool. It could be the rifle of choice after NJ bans all semi-autos. Then NJ will ban all firearms with levers, and that will be the end of that.

        • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 1:28 pm #

          Of course they want to strip us of all firearms, but I do not think that they can. I sent an email to Congressman Tom Kean Jr. on the subject of school shootings:

          “I do not have many or maybe even any answers to the large list of problems that face our society today, but I certainly DO have more than enough questions. Perhaps I should share a few of these with you.

          If our young men are having so much trouble dealing with the issues they have with the system that produces them, why are we not asking what is wrong with the system?

          Why is no one dealing with the possibility that violent video games and Hollywood products that glorify violence can be a seriously bad influences on our youth? (Don’t tell me it’s all about the profit margins)

          If high school and college age young men are the perpetrators of the vast majority of these crimes, why can we not target them as people that should not be allowed to have access to weapons?

          The most important question I have on this issue is:
          Why is the government so afraid of we the people, the decent, honest, working Americans that continue to sweat and strive every day to keep this machine running as best it can, that it feels the need to make us totally helpless and at it’s mercy?

          The people of New Jersey lead the nation, at least from what I can see, in being dedicated to working within the system to effect change and with our disgust with violence as a means to an end. If anybody needs to be disarmed they should start in Chicago. Oh that’s right, that isn’t working is it?

          I understand that the system is huge and tired and old and that you are only one man, but then so are we all. If you can do something positive, I would encourage it. If I can help in any way, please let me know how. Perhaps I am foolish for thinking that working to promote what is right has any value, but I would rather do so and fail then do nothing at all.”

          I received a very fast reply with interesting sentiments, but whether it made any impression or not, well I’m not holding my breath.

          They may once day disarm us all, but until they actually remove our arms as in bodily appendages, they will never be totally safe from the angry mob.

          • Exscotticus February 12, 2019 at 2:40 pm #

            The big push now is for laws that allow the state to take guns from those deemed an “imminent threat”.

            Now just think about this logically for a moment.

            If we believe someone is a danger to themselves and/or others, why would we simply grab their guns but leave them free to harm by other means?!

            It’s just gun-grabbing, pure and simple.

            Naturally, the process is ex parte, and the accused have no opportunity to counter the claim. Naturally, there’s also no process for remediation. How do the accused prove that they’re not a danger? They’re being accused of non-specific activity, or potential classes of activity they haven’t done. Naturally, these laws violate the due process clause of the Constitution.

            As if Dems or liberals care.

          • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 2:56 pm #

            Yes there is Exscot, they have already targeted the vets, the medical Mary-wanna users and will soon add the decriminalized Mary-wanna users. One day they will have a list of prescribed medications that come with a confiscation event. I would think that eventually they will be able to conjure up many different legal activities that can be tagged with a disarmament requirement afterwards and little by little they can create more and more disarmed future victims of whatever crime it is that they are planning to perpetrate upon all of us. Keep in mind the Deagal site, be it real or fabricated, that shows a mass dies off of population in America because as evil or fake as that may sound, mass death would be good for the government. It will get them off the hook in many, many ways.

            http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx

          • elysianfield February 12, 2019 at 7:46 pm #

            ” they will be able to conjure up many different legal activities that can be tagged with a disarmament requirement ”

            Walter,
            During your next Medicare sponsored doctor’s visit, tread carefully regarding innocuous looking questions on your pre-visit forms…such as;

            “Do you sometimes feel depressed?”

            “In the past three months, have you felt depression?”

            Bingo

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 1:09 am #

            They, the Elite, will never be safe from the angry mob and that is why they want depopulation. I can see them trying to do it the easy way via biological agents or environmental toxins.

          • Exscotticus February 13, 2019 at 12:19 pm #

            All laws have unintended consequences. A consequence of gun-grabbing from those who admit to any sort of mental issue will be that those in need won’t seek help. Not only will the state NOT get those guns, but now these patients won’t get counseling and drugs they may need.

      • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 1:42 pm #

        Thank you BRH, I checked it out and it is a beauty. I almost bought a lever action rifle many years ago. They is something about them that is very likable.

        • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 3:24 pm #

          That deagal website, phew!

          A few years back our govt was bringing Ebola victims into the US from Central Africa for treatment. At the time it seemed like we were playing with fire. I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it except Obama signalling the world how selfless America is and what big hearts we have. Now ebola is once again rampant in C Africa, spread by natives eating monkey meat, and in the Congo, natives eating Pygmys, yes, boiling human flesh in huge pots and chowin down!

          Brh

          • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 7:23 pm #

            Is that not one of the great joys of the Internet, that it is impossible to discern what is real from what is not? Post it and they will come, though they can never know, at least for sure, can they?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

        Speaking of little surprises, what do you think of the Tek9? Matt Bracken had a character in one of his novels who was able to keep it concealed and use it to good effect. I saw one at the last gun show I went to.

        • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 3:28 pm #

          A company is making a knockoff of the tech 9 about 2 miles from here. Those para military weapons are not for me. It has its purpose tho.

          Brh

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 6:08 pm #

            Same place as the Henry? Or is your part of CT firearm central for some reason?

          • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:21 pm #

            The male boding here.

          • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 7:28 pm #

            I never understood the fear of the “assault weapon” for I would much rather be sprayed at in the McDonalds by a kook with an AR than singled out by the shooter of a .3006 bolt action with a nice German optics scope. Not that I care for firearms at all that is. I prefer to remain naked and shaking in the closet and let the lawyers protect me, wink, wink.

  76. seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 12:04 pm #

    Why stop at the national border. Let’s build walls around every state. After all, if there is no border there is no state. I bet on the Oklahoma panhandle you could see the northern wall from the southern wall. Hell we’ll build a wall around each one of the Florida Keys, after all the people of Key Largo cannot stand the people of Key West. We could have floating walls for the Louisiana wetlands- wouldn’t want them floating up from Jamiaca. And the plains states. Jesus think of the per capita wall numbers there. Probably a mile of wall per citizen. Driving from one state to another unfettered- what a recipe for disaster. I don’t want no coon asses in Texas. I don’t even want them in America. They don’t talk like us, they don’t act like us, they don’t smell like us, they don”t eat like us. Goddammit they ain’t like us.

    • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 12:51 pm #

      There might be 2 billion people in the world who would like to come in here. Have you ever been overseas? Have you ever seen conditions in 3rd world countries?

      Brh

      • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 1:34 pm #

        My mother was from Nicaragua and my father worked for TACA Airlines. Get the picture? I traveled the world when airports were empty. I was like a rock star. The first plane I rode in, you walked on an incline to get to your seat, a DC-3. I’ve been to Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, British Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, England, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Jamaica, all the Leeward Islands and St. Barts, Bimini, Tortola, the BVI, Puerto Rico etc. etc. etc.
        I’ve been everywhere, man
        I’ve been everywhere, man
        Crossed the desert’s bare, man
        I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
        Of travel I’ve a’had my share, man
        I’ve been everywhere

        • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 1:36 pm #

          Oh and BTW, there’s at least 2 billion people who don’t want to come here.

        • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 1:50 pm #

          The problem Seadolt is that many of the dregs, what we get in spades, particularly from south of the frontera, bring their failed culture which ultimately only leads to replication of the sh***les they caravanned from.
          Memes dummy, memes.

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 1:57 pm #

            You wouldn’t know shit from Shinola if I spotted you an “S” an “H’ and an “I.”

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 3:19 pm #

            He identifies with them and not with us. Just like you do, just with a different them.

          • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 3:37 pm #

            Janos, the rub in life is that you have to share it with so many foolish and stupid people.

            They actually make life “worse”.

            They come in all colors and shapes.

            Some places provide more than others.

            It’s usually due to poverty, but the US skews this by providing so many relatively well off imbeciles and jerks.

          • seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 3:46 pm #

            “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” Oscar Wilde

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 6:12 pm #

            So what to do? Limit the pain. Different cultures suck in different ways. People generally suffer less with those who suck like they do. I’m being very negative because you are. But this kind of thinking isn’t alien to me at all. There’s a reason I seek happiness beyond the earthly plain. Anyway, let Rudyard instruct you as he must all of us. He IS the Man now in terms of poets.

            The Stranger by Rudyard Kipling

            The Stranger within my gate,
            He may be true or kind,
            But he does not talk my talk–
            I cannot feel his mind.
            I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
            But not the soul behind.

            The men of my own stock,
            They may do ill or well,
            But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
            They are used to the lies I tell;
            And we do not need interpreters
            When we go to buy or sell.

            The Stranger within my gates,
            He may be evil or good,
            But I cannot tell what powers control–
            What reasons sway his mood;
            Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
            Shall repossess his blood.

            The men of my own stock,
            Bitter bad they may be,
            But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
            And see the things I see;
            And whatever I think of them and their likes
            They think of the likes of me.

            This was my father’s belief
            And this is also mine:
            Let the corn be all one sheaf–
            And the grapes be all one vine,
            Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
            By bitter bread and wine.

          • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 7:51 pm #

            Negative, eh?

            “There lay all my love of life: a silent passion for what would perhaps escape me, a bitterness beneath a flame. Each day I would leave this cloister like a man lifted from himself, inscribed for a brief moment in the continuance of the world…

            There is no love of life without despair of life.

            No? it is not humiliating to be unhappy. Physical suffering is sometimes humiliating, but the suffering of being cannot be, it is life? What you must do now is nothing more than live like everybody else. You deserve, by what you are, a happiness, a fullness that few people know. Yet today this fullness is not dead, it is a part of life and, to its credit, it reigns over you whether you want it to or not. But in the coming days you must live alone, with this hole, this painful memory. This lifelessness that we all carry inside of us ? by us, I mean to say those who are not taken to the height of happiness, and who painfully remember another kind of happiness that goes beyond the memory.

            The great courage is still to gaze as squarely at the light as at death. Besides, how can I define the link that leads from this all-consuming love of life to this secret despair?

            Clock time is merely a method of measurement held in common by all civilized societies, and has the same kind of reality (or unreality) as the imaginary lines of latitude and longitude. The equator is useless for stringing a rolled roast. To judge by the clock, the present moment is nothing but a hairline which, ideally, should have no width at all ? except that it would then be invisible. If you are bewitched by the clock you will therefore have no present. ?Now? will be no more than the geometrical point at which the future becomes the past. But if you sense and feel the world materially, you will discover that there never is, or was, or will be anything except the present.“

            Camus, Author of the better “Stranger”

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 8:23 pm #

            You focus on one word (negative) and avoid the logic that I present. Nationalism and Cultural Monism are the relative (not existential) cures to the Globalist disease.

            Camus is just alright. Seriously over-rated for a long time. More of a novelist and journalist than a serious philosopher. Some say the same of Sartre, though he was a much more gifted man except when it came to politics. A Communist fool despite his genius….

          • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 9:25 pm #

            Oh my bad, you want to get into a poem ‘bout an old white guy afraid of the unknown, or perhaps more likely, very afraid to learn of the unknown.

            You can never unknow after all.
            It’s called the human condition.
            It’s a burden.. for most.

          • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 9:37 pm #

            Furthermore, Janos, what is a philosopher?
            A credentialed academic?
            Analytics Vs. Continentals?
            Grand theories?
            Camus is rather, er, quotidian? The way it ought to be.

            Sartre? Of course. He must appear in a Camus convo.
            I never thought of you as bougie, but admittedly, my initial thoughts are often undeveloped

          • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 6:27 pm #

            A Philosopher is a Lover of Wisdom. Not someone who raves about how he doesn’t know anything except what a prick he is, but still superior because he knows he is a prick.

          • 100th Avatar February 14, 2019 at 3:19 pm #

            Hmm.. so you don’t know you’re a prick? I see.

    • Yes, they sure don’t smell like us.

      That makes it easy to train the German shepherds

      • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 6:28 pm #

        yes, Yes, YES. I’m just realizing what an amazing word that is.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 12:58 am #

      You get so over the top sometimes.

  77. volodya February 12, 2019 at 12:29 pm #

    Disparity and inequality. That’s the bitch of the Deplorables supposedly. That’s according to perfumed pundits and greatly enlightened writers.

    Actually, disparity and inequality were never the problem and never will be. Disparity always existed and always will and was never an issue as long as the elements of fairness and justice went along with it. For example, the local doctor makes more money than you. So? You complainin’?

    The problem now is exactly what JHK sez, a mass squalor in America, tens of millions who have nothing to do, no work and therefore no means of making a life, or, if they have work, it pays shit and every month is a desperate worry about getting evicted or having the car towed.

    No work, no money, no girl, no wife, no kids, no house, no nothing and like JHK sez, the flimsiest notion of purpose in life. If you want societal mayhem, this is the recipe for it. Some people succumb to despair, dying of its associated diseases. But there’s another side to that coin, one whose shape we’re just beginning to discern.

    What does it look like? Look around, not just in the USA. There’s the Brexiteers, the Yellow Jackets, the AFD and the multitude of other European movements and parties. And other stuff too. Look at the mayhem in the middle east and Africa.

    Societies aren’t comprised of chess pieces. All the individual elements have got minds and agendas of their own and so it takes a while for a swarm to form up into ranks such that you can discern a direction, and such that movement starts to happen. Marx wrote in the 1850s but it wasn’t until 1917 that a group of his followers took power in Russia and later still in other countries.

    As JHK sez, there’s a lot of incoherence at the present time. But necessity will impose some order with political thought aligning itself with exigencies of the time.

    • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 2:10 pm #

      And what we are seeing out here in Western New Jersey is an ever increasing number of smash and grabs of vehicles in parking lots, thefts of stuff from homes, garages and stores, and recently, armed robberies in liquors stores where once were never thought possible. Home invasions are also occurring from time to time and the county sheriff’s office has had some luck busting city folk who come out here during the day and steal lawn equipment and quads. It is the slow decay that creeps downward a little bit more every day.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 4:29 pm #

        section 8.

        housing projects.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 12:57 am #

      Basically everything costs too much money and good, steady jobs with some benefits are hard to come by. So some people take up lives of crime and addiction. Others struggle to get by by doing things the right way. Either way I think the standard of living keeps falling, so we can anticipate more crime and general social turmoil.

  78. seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 12:38 pm #

    All that may be true, but building a wall benefits no one but wall builders.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 12:37 am #

      So you do live in a tent? Or do you live on a park bench? Where do you shower and go potty lol? I figured you were an exhibitionist but wow lol.

  79. BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 1:17 pm #

    That girl found dead stuffed inside a suitcase on the side of the road in Fairfield County last week — an arrest was made today. Turns out it was illegal from Latin America.

    Brh

    • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 1:26 pm #

      What is it about suitcases that make some people want to put dead bodies in them? It is a conundrum.

      If it makes you feel better give your alleged south American hummer citizenship before you put him away.

      Law enforcement sources have confirmed the suspect’s name is Javier de Silva. According to several sources he is an ex-boyfriend of Reyes, but their relationship has not been confirmed.

      All this focused effort to make people hate Latin Americans! What country are we getting ready to invade? Because none of this is protecting anybodies job unless you are a border guard.

      • Walter B February 12, 2019 at 1:45 pm #

        Well Killer, once you murder a person, it is generally a good idea to conceal the evidence, don’t you think? Stuffing the carcass into a suitcase is probably a whole lot easier than jamming them into a mailbox. I do believe it’s a volume thing.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 3:25 pm #

          Great sarcasm. He has no idea how ridiculous he sounds. Why did he highlight the gay aspect? Because he thought the news story did and he trying to make them sound Anti-Gay?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 3:23 pm #

        Kdog too identifies with them not us. Which them? All of them. Any of them. As long as they are have nots who want to drag Whites down and destroy Western Civilization.

        East Asians are problematic for the Kdog Cult: they are too successful even though they aren’t White. It doesn’t fit into the narrative so they need to be ignored unless and until they start bashing Whitey too.

        • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 3:55 pm #

          So you have not answered the question. What is all this faux hate for? Is it Venezuela? Do we need their thick crude to mix with our light crude? What’s the answer?

          One morning, when Janos Skorenzy woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. “What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream.

          Janos had turned into a big black ass cockroach. Looking about his room his eyes rested on the gilded frame of a picture of a golden chow dog. Everything in the room was the same except Janos had become a negrito blattodean insecta.

          Overnight, apparently overly concerned with giving anyone with any excess pigment grief had caused a severe karmic reaction. The insults and degradations directed at the undeserving had come back like an earthquake or tsunami with a force that had been expressed in cataclysmic fashion.

          Janos was now a bug. A black bug.

          • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 5:07 pm #

            Hey K dog you need to write a check to the Kafka estate for plagerizing the idea in his novel “Metamorphisis”. Better yet make the check out to: ‘Marlin Williams,’ Connecticut.

            Brh

          • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 5:23 pm #

            Israel’s supreme court has ruled that Franz Kafka’s manuscripts are the property of the National Library of Israel, ending a lengthy legal battle, judicial sources said in Monday.

            The nation’s top court on Sunday rejected an appeal by the heirs of Max Brod, a friend of Kafka and the executor of his estate to whom he had willed his manuscripts after his death in 1924. (no date on the Guardian article)

            Under the “fair use” defense, another author may make limited use of the original author’s work without asking permission. Pursuant to 17 U.S. Code § 107, certain uses of copyrighted material “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”

            Besides, I think Franz would have approved.

          • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 5:25 pm #

            The gilded frame with the golden chow dog was not Kafka.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 6:03 pm #

            In other words, my diagnosis is correct and you have no comeback at all except this literary ad hominem. I accept your ad hoc concession of defeat.

          • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 6:17 pm #

            Your diagnosis? BackRowHeckler responded not you, unless that means…………….

            But I don’t think so, your styles are too different.

            Ad hominem is incorrect my true chalky Scotsman! Nigras cimex impetum is a better descriptor.

    • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:23 pm #

      it = accused or suitcase gal?

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 12:30 am #

      Many people are A OK with the illegal alien crime wave. If it doesn’t affect them they don’t care. In fact, some Americans have to be deep-sixed to make room for the morally superior “refugees”. That’s the price we have to pay to live in a cool and cosmopolitan world. Now shut up and fork over some more money so we can give more freebies to the undocumented saints.

    • It goes like this.

      You stuff your stuff in a backpack

      You stuff yourself in a bus

      You stuff yourself in a van

      You stuff yourself in a box truck

      You stuff yourself into an apartment with 12 other migrants

      You stuff tamales in back of a Mexican restaurant

      Then one day, stuffing yourself in a suitcase seems reasonable because your new pimp said

  80. 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 2:41 pm #

    “We have a new kind of mass squalor in America: a great many people who have nothing to do, no means of support, and the flimsiest notions of purpose in life.”

    This is categorically untrue. They know their purpose:

    1 Consume, preferably with credit
    2 Get inculcated/persuaded/brainbathed/triggered on social media
    3 Relpicate and or propagate #2
    4 Vote for criminal D or criminal R
    5 Netflix & Chill

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  81. BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 3:47 pm #

    Janos, to pick up an earlier thread.

    Yeah, there are plenty of a holes in NE and a few on this board, but BTBill isn’t one of them; he’s been nothing but a gentleman here who pretty much sticks to the subject and the spirit of this site. Same goes for Ozone and Rip. Oz has more talent in his little finger than i have in my whole body. Rip did nothing but save lives for 30 years on the FD. Ive never met Rip but one of these days im gonna head north on US10 and look him up, meet him at that brewery on the state line.

    Brh

    • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 5:56 pm #

      I’m polite to people in public too. No religion or politics. Yawn. Why even bother? So I use the internet to have real conversations. You act online like you do in public. In other words, you aren’t using the internet to its fullest extent, accepting the gift that only it can provide now. That’s both unfortunate and strange.

      Obviously there are horrible sides to the internet and even the relative anonymity it provides. But having real conversations about real things isn’t one of them.

      Is all that glitters gold? Because he talks politely and conservatively, you think he’s for America or something? As long as America is for Israel and not a second longer. He’s not for us in and for ourselves as ourselves. What can I say? The Superior Man is not an instrument (Confucius). But you seem content to be so and wish it for all of us. Polite or not (and not when the punches cyber punches begin to fly), Bill is for Himself and his People. It’s mind blowing you can’t see that and/or desire the same for yourself and your people.

      • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 6:26 pm #

        On the net you don’t get the shit kicked out of you. You don’t have the balls or the stupidity to say in the world what you do here. Of course you use the internet for ‘real conversations’ because real conversations in the real world would put you in a coffin or into a hospital. How do I know this?

        Because you are still here.

        • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 7:19 pm #

          Real conversations in the real world hardly ever reach the stage of manifesting in real fatalities like you imagine. Statistically, the murder rate for heated arguments is still pretty insignificant & low. If verbal arguments has a lethal dosage rate of 50% that would mean heated arguments in real life resulted in fatalities about half the time. If heated arguments resulted in a rate of even 1% we would have major regulations against even talking to one another over beers in a pub.

          Politics in coffee houses would be outlawed by state regulators worried about lawsuits from litigators.

          Real conversations in the real world don’t lead to fatalities at the rate you might think, K-Dog.

          A punch in the lunch is worth two birds in the hand.

          RW

          • K-Dog February 12, 2019 at 8:38 pm #

            That’s fine and dandy but you did not consider the source, Janos.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:29 am #

            Robert, It is Clusterfuck Nation because we are living in a clusterfuck. JHK did not know ahead of time what was going to happen in here but he knew America was going to tank. That is why it is Clusterfuck Nation.

            JHK made a comment about H.P. Lovecraft and /or quoted him when the blog first started up. That shows he expected some kind of whackadoo brew in here of similar flavor. A flavor of deep imagination. That does not mean he knew what would actually happen in here. Just that something would. I’m sure we have both delighted and let him down.

            How was JHK to know that this place would turn out to be a playground for government workers? This blog is deep with them and if you really get their goat expect a visit. Good they do something to earn their pay though the ones who visit are not the Shakespeare typing monkeys they stock in here. They wear black suits and white shirts when they visit and have questions. I’m sure there are no suits behind keyboards.

            The process of delving into the black abyss is to me
            the keenest form of fascination.

            We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark,
            and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.

            I am disillusioned enough to know that no man’s opinion
            on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with
            enough genuine information to make him really know what he’s talking about.

            It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would set aside all the intellectual progress of years, and plunge us back into the darkness of mediaeval disbelief.

            – H. P. Lovecraft

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:32 am #

            Not all of them ask questions. Some are just around so you know what you are dealing with.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 7:19 pm #

          In other words you agree with me that free speech is over in the “real” world. And it almost sounds like you like it and/or you’d like to see me get stomped for exercising my First Amendment Rights.

          • Robert White February 12, 2019 at 10:15 pm #

            I support your free speech rights, Janos. I agree with you for once. And no I don’t want anyone punched for their constitutional rights paradigm or speech exercised on whatever. This place is supposed to be Clusterfuck Nation where everyone knows it’s a clusterfuck and we all work through the clusterfuck without really getting clusterfucked.

            That’s why JHK chose the name Clusterfuck Nation, Janos.
            He knew we would fight and that we had to get along in oder to fight in Clusterfuck Nation.

            Don’t be so defensive every time I pop around. I like your input and every time I drop in to Clusterfuck Nation I expect the family to be arguing as per usual.

            RW

          • Janos Skorenzy February 12, 2019 at 11:47 pm #

            I was obviously talking to Kdog. I’m not mad at you yet. No doubt I will get mad at you in a day or two though.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:02 am #

            Don’t think I want your ass kicked. I’m just saying you can’t get by with the things you say in here out there.

            But you know this. You come here because it would not be a good idea to be ranting about about how stupid and slow a heavily pigmented clerk is in a checkout line is and how much better things would be if they were gone and how even though they have ten generations of ancestors in this country they still have no rights in a land of white people.

            Perhaps in real life your charming personality would blow me away and I’d see that your gregarious and friendly nature can own a room and you can say just about anything you want anytime you want.

            I doubt it.

            But here I go treating you like a real person. So many years together it is hard not to.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:57 am #

            With enough money speech is free.

      • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:28 pm #

        He is rude. period.

      • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:30 pm #

        Ah Janos, fuck you [courtesy of BB]/

        This is what he offered, days ago, yet BRH thinks he is polite—here goes,

        To all the Jew haters, I happily deliver a hale and hearty Fuck You.
        This means you Malthuss, a real doozy of a small mind lacking any discerningj intelligence, totally unaware of how pathetic you are, and how powerless you feel in your abject terror of others.

        There are others I could call out here, but I don’t want to bother, I think I’ve made my point, and besides you know who I mean.

        • beantownbill. February 12, 2019 at 10:14 pm #

          Only the haters like yourself, Malthuss, am I not polite to because hate is based on fear, and fear is what keeps mankind from achieving its full potential. I admit that I’m afraid if the anti-Semites gain power, my people and good people everywhere will suffer. Speaking of suffering, I also admit to a shortcoming: I refuse to suffer fools – such as yourself.

          Sorry, Marlin, I am not perfect, but to you and others like you I will always act like a gentleman. I guess percentage-wise, the number of CFNer assholes is pretty low, but they are painted in such bright colors they seem to dominate the blogscape. To my mind, someone can disagree with me, and that’s ok, but when they add hatred to the mix, well, sometimes I cannot let that stand.

          And Janos, as usual, is so wrong in his twisted mentality, I could almost – almost but not quite – feel sorry for him.

    • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:28 pm #

      Yeah, there are plenty of a holes in NE and a few on this board, but BTBill isn’t one of them; he’s been nothing but a gentleman here

      You are delirious. That is yr worst post.
      He is many of the bad things he describes others as.
      IOW he projects.

      • S M Tenneshaw February 15, 2019 at 1:00 am #

        You never really got that whole “cause and effect” thing, did you?

  82. JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 3:58 pm #

    The book I mentioned earlier will give all the pro wall folks even more reason to support the wall. The world is going to hell literally.

    • 100th Avatar February 12, 2019 at 6:00 pm #

      Heaven for the weather, but hell for the company

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 12:10 am #

      Maybe this is the real hell? I have heard that theory before.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:37 am #

        A form of solipsism. Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, Solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:38 am #

          I should have quoted that. I usually make sure to show what is mine and what is not.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:04 am #

            Very interesting! So are you saying that the idea that this plane of existence is hell could be a manifestation of solipsism? I assume that is where you may be going. You are a smart dog, that no one can deny ;-).

  83. malthuss February 12, 2019 at 7:26 pm #

    Rain Tax

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYqmPgX7R1Q

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 12:08 am #

      Why not an air tax too?

      • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:36 pm #

        carbon is in the air, so yes.

  84. capt spaulding February 12, 2019 at 8:27 pm #

    Just read that the deficit topped 22 trillion for the first time. I think it’s pretty obvious that we didn’t cut taxes for the wealthy enough, oh, and we need more deregulation too. I’m getting tired of having to explain everything to these guys.

    • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 11:23 pm #

      Yup!

      What will happen when the debt load forces the deficit so high that you cannot pay the deficit without borrowing more?

      Main Street You go bankrupt.

      The guy who owns the printing press?

  85. seawolf77 February 12, 2019 at 8:37 pm #

    T-34/85 vs Tigers.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNgd30P940g

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:53 pm #

      I feel like you are colluding with the Russians.

  86. JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 9:08 pm #

    Read the next chapter on drug trade

    Bottom line, the liquidity needed to keep up the interest payments of the global finance structure is being provided by the drug trade. It is the oil of the global finance system. Yes, that insinuates the global finance operators run the drug trade with help from the mafia and the cartels.

    On February 9, 2017, Trump signed an executive order directing John Kelly and Jeff Sessions to start a “war” on the international drug trade. His emphasis on the wall is directed at stopping the drugs crossing the border. As these drugs are keeping the globalist finance group in business, they will fight him to the death. His or Theirs!

    These guys need the border open!

  87. Pucker February 12, 2019 at 10:06 pm #

    “Bill Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said in an interview published Tuesday that “despite the circumstances,” Cosby, 81, has told him: “This is an amazing experience.”

    Last week, it was reported that the disgraced comic was moved to the general prison population after spending his first four months in special housing as he acclimated. He now has a single cell in a two-story unit at the newly built SCI-Phoenix prison outside Philadelphia.”

    • beantownbill. February 12, 2019 at 10:16 pm #

      Puck, old age is no excuse for bad behavior.

      • malthuss February 12, 2019 at 11:18 pm #

        Criminals, like predatory animals, look for the weak.
        Careful at the gas stations etc,

        Unz.com-Jack Hough: 73-Year-Old White Male Philanthropist Murdered by Black Male Career Criminal in Gainesville, Georgia.

        • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:44 pm #

          According to evolutionist we are nothing more than evolved apes so we should just feel free to say the poor man was murdered by a wild ape.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:47 am #

            And documented by a racist ape. The author Paul Kersey specializes in writing about black on white crime. Here is a list to prove it.

            http://www.unz.com/author/paul-kersey/

            Perhaps Paul experienced trauma?

            Perhaps somebody here has a day job besides me.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:51 am #

            He has so many articles they must come pretty natural.

            His Name Is Austin R. Burroughs: White Air Force Airman Gunned Down by Three Blacks in “Senseless, Cowardly” Murder in Safe Suburb of Austin, Texas

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:51 am #

            We are closer to chimps than apes.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:00 am #

            I am glad Paul does what he does because the mainstream media would never report such stories. White lives don’t matter and that includes you if you are White after all. What do you gain in this? I mean always standing up for non-White criminals and criminality. I find it very fascinating. Same as with Elrond. Does it help you sleep better at night? Does it make you feel that you are a moral person? Were your ancestors slave-owners and this is your penance for the sins of the fathers? What is it? Tell me. I am genuinely fascinated and not making fun of you at all. Clearly you truly believe you are doing the right thing so I don’t fault you. I just don’t get you.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:02 am #

            Did you know that chimps are very tribal?

          • Elrond Hubbard February 14, 2019 at 11:11 am #

            SoftStarLight: “Did you know that chimps are very tribal?”

            I for one did know that, SSL. Simian tribalism is a part of our heritage as homo sapiens. It drives a lot of our very worst behaviour, as well as a lot of cognitive bias and motivated reasoning. This is why I’ve made a point in the past of comparing people to chimps when they say bigoted things. Examples are here and here.

            I noticed you commented about me the other day, but I didn’t bother to reply because there was nothing there worth responding to. What you just wrote is another example. Your opinions, SoftStarLight — your opinions about me, about race, about why people do the things they do — only make sense in the context of chimp values. These are values which you clearly accept, but which I and many others (I hope most others) reject. You will never be able to understand why people actually disagree with you, or have the opinions they do, until you take off the chimp glasses.

            It’s not that I expect to persuade you, but I’ll speak for the record: The idea that ‘Black Lives Matter’ implies “White lives don’t matter” is a falsehood and a slander. It does not follow, not on any moral or intellectual grounds worthy of human beings. It only makes sense on tribalist, chimpanzee grounds: the idea that if you are not with us, you must be against us. In my world view, SoftStarLight, we are all us, regardless of the colour of our skin; and science backs me up on this. On that basis, ‘Black Lives Matter’ means nothing more or less than, “Stop treating us as less than fully human. Treat us as you would treat your own, because we are.” That is a completely just and reasonable demand, and I support it — on human terms, not chimp terms.

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 3:47 am #

          The Jack Kersey Reading list.

          One sick puppy.

  88. A lot of people lack imagination.

    It takes imagination to understand why climate change is more important than hurting people’s feelings by deporting them, and reducing our own population.

    It takes imagination to understand why climate change is more important than respecting belligerents’ threats of retaliation if an embargo of carbon pollution is made the official mandate of the military of the United States of America. We simply have to call that bluff.

    It takes imagination to understand why climate change is never going to be mediated without the threat of real force by military arms.

    We need a leader who will kick the problem’s ass, not foolishly chase a pipe dream of corporate and multilateral neo-liberal negotiation.

    Friends, its time to take the gloves off on the most important problem in the world today. If the nations of the world want to defend themselves given a deadline for dismantling, I say that the US and its allies should immediately enforce a global embargo on carbon pollution. As- by far- being the largest and most capable military, it is essential that we lead the Embargo.

    The terms for joining the embargo are simple. Acquiescence of responsibility and proof of dismantl

    Whereas.. this will produce temporary disruption of many economic factors, we will gladly force our chartered Agriculture corporations to produce humane, life-sustaining rations ‘Human chow'(tm).

    Its this way or the highway (to the dark ages and possible extinction). What say you?

    It is time. We are now the world’s leading producer of primary energy for military use. Our network of 800 global bases is ready. Let the Chinese or Russians call our bluff… they are reasonable, they will come to the table. And the petty dictators… they will reap a whirlwind until they, too, are forced to the table.

    What will happen is not WWIII- but cooperation and progress, in a hurry.

    Whats that I hear?

    I hear some libertarians crying in the corner. There, there. Boo fuckin hoo.

    • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 10:41 pm #

      Lil Deb

      Totally convinced and sympathetic to AGW.

      Millions spent on measuring and trying to prove the presence of CC, and it is becoming more convincing to even conservatives.

      Billions spent on research, development and implementation of renewable forms of electricity.

      Big problem. It is not curbing much. The fixes don’t. Politicians bitch but when one (AOC) comes out and shows the US public what it will take to even start to affect CC, everybody dumps on her. What she is professing will occur during the Long Emergency, but doing it in 12 years is too big of a shock for the public.

      What do you mean I have to give up my PU, SUV, RV or boat? And not just conservatives.

      What is Al Gore going to do without his jet?

      • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:29 pm #

        OMG seriously? The whole climate change hoax is just an NWO subterfuge to establish global government. John what do you think about Climategate? Only academics who believe in AGW can get grants to do research. Just wait until global temperatures plummet in the next few years and people freeze to death every winter in growing numbers. Then what?

        • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 6:21 am #

          Then you’ll be able to come on here and say ‘I told you so’. but until it’s happened you’d be better sticking with actual evidence. It’s not long to wait, ‘the next few years’, is it, for the satisfaction of er…proving the world’s climate scientists wrong.

          Here’s the Climategate story:

          https://skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked-advanced.htm

          I won’t say ‘read it and make up your own mind’, because you’ve already made up your own mind and reading this won’t make any difference. Even though it shows you’ve been had.

          Oh, and AGW isn’t the same as climate change. AGW is what’s causing the extra climate change that’s happening on top of the natural climate change. Two related phenomena, but not the same.

          And human-induced climate change, caused by AGW, is like your skin ageing naturally then ageing a bit more than it needs to because you spend too much time in the sun. Simples. Someone telling you that skin ages naturally wouldn’t make you feel any better if you looked 70 when you were 50 because you never wore a sun hat or used sun cream.

          At some point it would be too late to do anything about it but if you use the cream now and wear a sun hat, you can still prevent yourself from looking like a prune at 50. And I’m sure you’ll do that, because you accept the science of sun-induced skin ageing. Because it’s not presented to you by annoying ‘liberals’. But I’m sure you’d have difficulty getting a research grant to show that sun doesn’t age skin. And quite right too. Money doesn’t grown on trees.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 8:07 am #

            And even if it got colder over the next few years, you’d need to establish a long-term underlying ‘trend’. The way the climate scientists have.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 8:18 am #

            But be happy, SSL. You’ve been promised, on this very site – and soon – a comprehensive exposé of the ‘AGW hoax’. So that’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?

            I won’t be taking part, but I may get the popcorn out. And I hope very much that james charles will hang around for it, to back the usual sensible people on here. And he sounds as if he’s not going to let crap go unanswered.

            So the AGW-hoax brigade had better have their ducks in a row, with incontrovertible evidence in their little beaks.

            And best not to waste people’s time with ANY of the arguments on here:

            https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

            Because they’ve all been busted.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 9:40 am #

            Right Alba, of course. You are always right in these things. Until you are not. It doesn’t matter anyway. You AGW promoters are just like flat-earthers. Inquisitions and all. Science is never settled. Real scientists know that. The problem is there are not very many real scientists around anymore. Just people looking to make as much money and get as many grants to keep their scams going as possible. And what better reason to have an omnipresent and omnipotent global government than to regulate energy consumption and industrial production. But right, yeah they are all just doing it because they love the earth lol. Ok.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 10:55 am #

            The difference, SSL, is that you believe what you want to believe and I believe what I don’t want to believe, because the evidence for what I’d rather not believe is so overwhelming that I have to believe it. Whereas you can believe what you believe with no evidence whatever, just a ‘feeling’ that scientists are baddies and want world government. Seriously.

            And it’s not me that’s right. It’s them. I’d love them to be wrong, but I can’t put my fingers in my ears, sing la la la, and make reality change.

            You CAN put your fingers in your ears, but you can’t make reality change either.

            And I explained the ‘settled science’ issue already to elysianfield, because he likes to laugh at the idea.

            So here’s what’s settled.

            Increased CO2 in the atmosphere increases atmospheric temperature. That’s been known since the end of the 19th century. Are you disputing this? If so, show your working.

            Increased atmospheric temperature increases extreme weather. This is because adding energy to the system increases volatility. Are you disputing this?

            Increasing the temperature of the oceans increases the volume of the water. Are you disputing this? As does melting ice. Are you disputing this?

            Increasing the volume of the water means that storm surges do vastly more damage. Are you disputing this?

            Melting permafrost causes methane to be expelled into the atmosphere. Are you disputing this?

            Frozen methane clathrates at the bottom of the ocean are also expelled as gas into the atmosphere as ocean temperatures rise. Are you disputing this?

            Methane is 26 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Are you disputing this?

            What’s NOT settled is exactly what the long-term effects will be in every place at every exact time in the future. That’s what scientists are working on – adding day by day to the work done to make predictions more reliable and to check current trends against predictions made decades ago. So far, because scientists are conservative rather than sensationalist people, by nature and conviction, things are actually worse than predicted.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 11:38 am #

            “You AGW promoters are just like flat-earthers. Inquisitions and all. ”

            And this is typical denier nonsense. No-one is preventing you from spouting whatever you want or putting you on the rack. You just want to be able to spout it and have everyone agree with it. Even when it contains no evidence, just your gut feeling that scientists are untrustworthy.

          • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 11:49 am #

            “And I explained the ‘settled science’ issue already to elysianfield, because he likes to laugh at the idea…”

            Alba,
            You confuse my stifled sob with a laugh, my risus sardonicus with a smile…”settled science” of any sort is the death of reason and truth.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

            That’s fine, then, EF, but you still need to come up with some evidence that contradicts what passes for settled science. Otherwise you’re just whingeing and smirking.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:04 pm #

            Nope! I didn’t say that scientists are all wrong but on this particular issue there is a lot of fraud. I am not sure why that is such a controversial thing to believe. The link between increased atmospheric CO2 and global average temperatures is tenuous and based on skewed data. If it were true then we need to understand why there were ice ages in the past when CO2 levels were much higher than they are today. Same thing with the other assertions you put forth. It isn’t settled science. We can argue until the cows come home and I am sure we could but it doesn’t change that reality. You are just as committed to your BELIEFS as I am mine. Both of us have some scientific evidence on our sides but neither of us have the full picture because no one understands how the entire climate system operates and changes. I am not even concerned with anyone believing my point of view. But it should receive just as much consideration as your point of view.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 3:57 pm #

            “didn’t say that scientists are all wrong but on this particular issue there is a lot of fraud. I am not sure why that is such a controversial thing to believe.”

            It’s not controversial at all if you have proper verifiable proof of the extensive fraud.

            “the link between increased atmospheric CO2 and global average temperatures is tenuous and based on skewed data. ”

            Are you familiar with the work of Svante Arrhenius? Do you have anything on his skewed data? (yes you can find him on Wiki).

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 3:59 pm #

            “But it should receive just as much consideration as your point of view.”

            I don’t have a point of view, in that sense. I accept the overwhelming evidence of the science. It’s not personal.

            Your ‘point of view’ hasn’t the slightest entitlement to be considered to the same extent as the work of thousands of scientists. And neither has mine.

          • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 7:51 pm #

            That’s fine, then, EF, but you still need to come up with some evidence that contradicts what passes for settled science.”

            Alba,
            With all respect…No, I don’t….

            I have never said nor written that Anthropomorphic Climate Change is a false premise, I just say that I remain unconvinced. Unconvinced of its causality. I have said that human activity is probably contributory, but perhaps not causal as if rolling back the impact of humanity would change the climate for the better.

            In fact…

            If in the future humanity is found to be the actual primary contributor…I will just stand corrected….

            In an area not greatly understood, with untold number of variables, and only incomplete models, perhaps politically vectored, to assume that one obvious contributor is the sole and overriding cause of climate is, in my mind…simplistic.

            I have this luxury of indecision because not a God-Damned thing can be done about it in any case.

          • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 9:41 am #

            EF

            I have never said nor written that Anthropomorphic Climate Change is a false premise, I just say that I remain unconvinced. Unconvinced of its causality. I have said that human activity is probably contributory, but perhaps not causal as if rolling back the impact of humanity would change the climate for the better.”

            You are confusing the issue. Climate change is something that happens all the time, as people never tire of pointing out. Just as I pointed out elsewhere, skin ageing is something that happens, gradually, all the time, but if you choose to fry yourself in the sun on a regular basis you’re going to add some auto-generated wrinkles you didn’t need to have. What you want is to somehow claim that we can’t prove that sitting in the sun had any effect on the intensity of the wrinkles. But we can.

            So climate change happens all the time – and the factors involved can be isolated, although perhaps not to your satisfaction. On top of those underlying trends scientists observe anthropogenic global warming, causing anthropogenic climate change. If you isolate the extraneous factors, which is far from simple, what you are left with is the component of climate change that is caused by human activity. That is the only thing that is referred to as human-induced climate change.

            And if you’re not claiming anthropogenic climate change is a false premise, by definition you are accepting that a component of climate change is caused by humans.

            to assume that one obvious contributor is the sole and overriding cause of climate is, in my mind…simplistic.”

            And so it would be, but that’s not what climate scientists are saying. Their measurements of every damn thing are precisely to isolate how much of current climate change (which is way less gradual than anything seen previously) is down to human activity.

            I have this luxury of indecision because not a God-Damned thing can be done about it in any case.”

            Can’t argue with you there, the way things are going. Humans seem intent on rendering themselves extinct sooner than necessary. So be it.

          • elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

            ” If you isolate the extraneous factors, which is far from simple…”

            Alba,
            It is far from simple because the current spate of inductive reasoning demands that any aberration of data be considered “extraneous”.

            Consider the decline of insect habitat and the angst that insect loss generates.

            The climate and environment is a part of the insect habitat…wind, rain, humans stomping them with their size 12’s.

            Who is to say that insect hatches are not impacted by wind? Can not a factor be the energy depleted from the wind where wind turbine farms are local? Oh yeah, extraneous….

          • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

            I’ll grant you extraneous wasn’t a good choice of word, EF. I thought that as I was writing it.

    • revilo February 12, 2019 at 11:10 pm #

      A global embargo on carbon pollution? Riiiiight

      • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 11:16 pm #

        Yeah, who signs up first?

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:20 pm #

      AGW is a hoax. You don’t believe it either so you call it climate change. Climate changes. It’s natural. Habitat destruction, deforestation, and environmental polluton are real though and I can support some of your efforts domestically to stop those things.. But your foreign intervention ideas are repulsive. Please go back to the drawing board. I promise to keep listening. Oh yeah, the deportation part was my fave :-).

      • JohnAZ February 12, 2019 at 11:45 pm #

        Whoa SSL.

        If you look at the data unbiased, the data shows that the Tropical seas are warming, the same spots showing increases with time. The glaciers worldwide are eroding, the arctic ice is reducing year to year, the effects are accumulative. These are not guesses, they are fact.

        Now, the effects these changes have are not understood at all. My guess, and it is mine only, is that a significant change will occur if the one area that stays the same year to year, the poles, lose their ice coverings. The ability for ol’ Mother Earth to blow off even yearly seasonal warming will be compromised. Things will change.

        My guess is as good as anyone else’s. That is the real problem.

        Measure, measure, measure. Things are changing in a pattern.

        There is nothing we can do now to fix it so

        Adapt!

        Wouldn’t it be lovely if we did something like put seltzer in the stratosphere to diffuse incoming solar radiation and the net result was to put the heat retention so low we went into an ice age? Messing around with big corrections could be fatal.

        • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:58 pm #

          But the Antarctic and Greeland ice sheets are growing not eroding.

          https://principia-scientific.org/climate-shock-90-percent-worlds-glaciers-growing/

          • james charles February 13, 2019 at 4:36 am #

            “JK
            November 29, 2016 at 1:51 am | #
            Did you even read the study you’re reporting on? Did you understand it? The NASA study which your article is talking about mentions NOTHING of the world’s glaciers. It’s about how the interior pack ice of Antarctica is growing faster than it’s glaciers are melting, meaning Antarctica isn’t contributing much to rising sea levels. Not news really, since it’s been established that the northern hemisphere is warming faster than the southern hemisphere. However, the reason the pack ice is growing is because it’s snowing there more. Antarctica, which is normally a desert, is now getting more moisture, because of… you guessed it, global warming. An average temperature of -13 °F roughly corresponds to an average precipitation of 16 inches, while temperatures below -67 °F correspond to values of precipitation below 2 inches. This is explained by the fact that at -67 °F, the saturated vapor pressure is 30 times lower than at -13 °F: in other words, the air can hold much less moisture, and then cause less precipitation. Environmental science has disproved your intended point. More arctic ice is a product of higher average temperatures. The world’s glaciers are melting, you dork, except in places where global warming is causing it to snow more. You need to take an environmental science class, because all of your articles are skewed and wrong, just like this one is. Dumb people are sad.”

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 9:24 am #

            Wow James Charles thanks for the re-post of a commenter on the site. Funny how the commenter says that more Arctic ice is the result of higher average temperatures. I guess this is why glaciation and ice ages were possible in the deep past when average global temperatures and CO2 levels were higher than today. But let’s not do too much thinking about it. We might get jail time for being a denier.

          • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 11:25 am #

            ” The world’s glaciers are melting, you dork…”

            James,
            Finally, an argument to which I cannot respond. Unassailable logic…the veil has been lifted from my eyes.

            Where do I go to pay my carbon tax?

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 12:05 pm #

            A not so clever non-sequitur, EF.

            The science does not tell you what you should do about AGW. It just describes the science behind it and creates models to help predict future conditions. It may be able to assess the impact of various tactics and strategies but it cannot tell you what you should do.

            Individual scientists are entirely entitled, as human beings, to have an opinion on how or whether to mitigate the effects, or how or whether to try to limit CO2 emissions in the first place They are, after all, people with families, like everyone else, so they are allowed to care about the effects as well as to care about the accuracy of their work.

            But many of them may not think a carbon tax is the way to go. That would be a different field altogether. Politics, economics and psychology, just for starters.

      • james charles February 13, 2019 at 4:29 am #

        “For climate change, there are many scientific organizations that study the climate. These alphabet soup of organizations include NASA, NOAA, JMA, WMO, NSIDC, IPCC, UK Met Office, and others. Click on the names for links to their climate-related sites. There are also climate research organizations associated with universities. These are all legitimate scientific sources.

        If you have to dismiss all of these scientific organizations to reach your opinion, then you are by definition denying the science. If you have to believe that all of these organizations, and all of the climate scientists around the world, and all of the hundred thousand published research papers, and physics, are all somehow part of a global, multigenerational conspiracy to defraud the people, then you are, again, a denier by definition. 

        So if you deny all the above scientific organizations there are a lot of un-scientific web sites out there that pretend to be science. Many of these are run by lobbyists (e.g.., Climate Depot, run by a libertarian political lobbyist, CFACT), or supported by lobbyists (e.g., JoannaNova, WUWT, both of whom have received funding and otherwise substantial support by lobbying organizations like the Heartland Institute), or are actually paid by lobbyists to write Op-Eds and other blog posts that intentionally misrepresent the science.”
        https://thedakepage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/how-to-assess-climate-change.html

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 9:29 am #

          Oh right of course! Government organizations and universities are always right and other scientific organizations are always wrong. And anyone who questions is a DENIER!!!! When the entire establishment believed the earth was flat you would have supported that and called anyone who disagreed a denier. You see we never actually moved past the dark ages. The human mind is usually always in a dark age if you will.

          • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:41 pm #

            follow the money.
            where is grant money awarded to?

            I guess we have been in a warming cycle that is inside a greater cooling cycle.
            And that warming cycle is ending.

            Just a guess from a Non climate Change non scientist.

          • james charles February 14, 2019 at 6:41 am #

            Science denier.

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 9:51 am #

          “both of whom have received funding and otherwise substantial support by lobbying organizations like the Heartland Institute), or are actually paid by lobbyists to write Op-Eds and other blog posts that intentionally misrepresent the science.”
          thedakepage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/how-to-assess-climate-change.html

          Oh say it aint so! LOL

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:05 am #

            Do you really believe government organizations and universities are not lobbyists? They are money making schemes just like anything in the private sector. Thinking caps please!

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 11:57 am #

            SSL, I do hope you never go near a doctor or a dentist, or walk over a bridge designed by an engineer. Or get in a lift. Or a car. Or a building. Seriously, you shouldn’t trust the safety of anything designed by anyone – scammers one and all, from lobbying universities only after government money.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 1:47 pm #

            SSL If you say so. In that case I’ll guess GS 12 -step 2, at $65720 a year.

            How far off am I?

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:06 pm #

            LOL so you are theorizing I am a government employee? You are entertaining me K!

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:10 pm #

            Alba you shouldn’t trust everything you read. Sometimes engineers, dentists and doctors are scammers and frauds and sometimes they are genuine people doing their best to make the world a better place. Don’t you find that to be the case with everything? It’s always a little bit of both but never all in one. It’s the nature of the beast if you will. It’s very healthy to question and to be concerned because humans and human nature is flawed.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm #

            “Alba you shouldn’t trust everything you read.”

            I don’t. Including on here.

            “Sometimes engineers, dentists and doctors are scammers and frauds and sometimes they are genuine people doing their best to make the world a better place.”

            Mostly they’re just people doing a job and doing it to the best of their ability. There are a few frauds. Not many. Fraudsters have more lucrative places to go on the whole, with less training required.

            “It’s very healthy to question and to be concerned because humans and human nature is flawed.”

            Of course. That’s why if someone describes AGW science as a cult or a religion, I question their motives. But I do understand the psychology of their tactics.

        • TPTB-USA February 13, 2019 at 12:08 pm #

          Hi James Charles, I skimmed the list that GreenAlba posted a link to above (thanks GreenAlba), but I don’t spot answers for some of the speculative points that Armstrong promotes.

          It is my understanding that Armstrong has written a program to establish, analyze, and correlate cycles. The aspect that I find intriguing is where there is an increase in volcanic activity relating to solar minimums.

          The following is but one of his posts on the subject:
          https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/aborigines-create-the-worst-drought-in-aussie-history-hello-coming-ice-age/

          Disregarding all the childish diggs from both sides, I’d be interested in hearing your take.

  89. malthuss February 12, 2019 at 11:16 pm #

    He has made ‘extra ordinary contributions’

    ATLANTA (AP) — Grammy-nominated rapper 21 Savage was granted bond for release Tuesday after spending more than a week in federal immigration custody, but he wasn’t freed right away, his lawyer said.

    The rapper, whose given name is She’yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, was arrested during a targeted immigration operation early on Feb. 3. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said at the time that the British citizen had overstayed his visa and had a felony conviction.

    n an emailed statement, lawyers Kuck, Dina LaPolt and Alex Spiro said they’ve been speaking with ICE since his arrest to “clarify his actual legal standing, his eligibility for bond, and provide evidence of his extraordinary contributions to his community and society.”

    –send him back to UK, please.

    • SoftStarLight February 12, 2019 at 11:41 pm #

      Deport the She’yaa Bin Savage now!!!!!! His contribution to society is reminding us that forehead tatts are STILL nasty and unfortunate. His beats suck too.

    • BackRowHeckler February 12, 2019 at 11:53 pm #

      Did the article mention that he was carrying a 9mm Glock when he was arrested? Felon in possession of a firearm is a serious charge, usually punishable by 5 years in prison.

      Incidentally, have the racist homophobes who assaulted Jussie Smollett in Chi been arrested yet? Police haven’t come up with any suspects yet; 50 people have been shot in Chicago so far this month and detectives are out looking for phantoms for a crime that never happened.

      What’s the penalty for a hate crime hoax?

      brh

      • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 1:28 am #

        No penalty at all! We still gotta find those KKK homophobes!!!!

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 3:25 am #

      From Wiki:

      In the seventh grade, Abraham-Joseph was banned permanently from every school in DeKalb County School District for gun possession.

      DeKalb County is Atlanta. Born in London yes but overstayed his visa even if true does not describe the situation quite right.

      Abraham-Joseph’s parents separated early in his life, and he moved with his mother to Atlanta, Georgia, at the age of 7.[18][19] In June 2005, at the age of 12, he went to the United Kingdom for a month and then returned to the United States on an H-4 visa which is said to have expired a year later in June 2006.

      “His whole public persona is false. He actually came to the U.S. from the U.K. as a teen and overstayed his visa.”

      That last part could be a problem for ICE if in fact he was expelled from Atlanta Schools and has been here since he was seven years old. If he has a felony conviction the appropriate time to deport was then.

      Interesting times!

      • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:17 am #

        Do you think ICE should be abolished?

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:42 pm #

          thru climate change, perhaps all the ice will be gone by year 2000- Al Bore.

    • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 11:28 am #

      ” emailed statement, lawyers Kuck”

      Malthuss,
      It is spelled…”Cuck”….

      • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:43 pm #

        you are too witty.
        Now if only Beans and Greens had a bit of that in their ripostes.

  90. Pucker February 13, 2019 at 12:34 am #

    Many people seem to think that Bill Cosby was giving white women “Spanish Fly” to make ‘em really horny.

    “Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said in an interview published Tuesday that “despite the circumstances,” Cosby, 81, has told him: “This is an amazing experience.”

    Last week, it was reported that the disgraced comic was moved to the general prison population after spending his first four months in special housing as he acclimated. He now has a single cell in a two-story unit at the newly built SCI-Phoenix prison outside Philadelphia. ”

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 11:30 am #

      Free Andrew Wyatt….

  91. BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 12:46 am #

    So when this Savage 21 was arrested he was rolling with his posse in a 3 car caravan. In one of the cars a posse member had an FN M4 carbine, which he pointed at a police officer.

    And this guy is out on bond. Something don’t sound right.

    brh

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 1:24 am #

      Black privilege strikes again.

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 3:39 am #

      Which he pointed at a police officer.

      How do you know that he did it? Without hard evidence this is a subjective situation.

      Just saying, because I know factual statements from the back row are not as important as a punchline.

      Something don’t sound right.

      I like it, I hear the double entendre but I’m not sure others will. Some will only hear one meaning, the one they desire.

    • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:43 pm #

      Black priv?

  92. Chris at Fernglade Farm February 13, 2019 at 6:49 am #

    Hi Jim,

    I read a lot of comments, and one matter struck me as being unmentionable in polite company:

    The wealth in the social security system in your country is held in the form of money (someone please correct me if my understanding is in error).

    However, the policies that your country is pursuing – and I particularly refer to the ever expanding monetary supply and very low interest rates – has historically (and elsewhere in the world) resulted in devaluing the units of that money supply.

    So my thinking is that basically storing the social security wealth in the form of money may eventually mean that the value of the units stored may disappear (or be slowly devalued).

    If you get a check that is worthless, but you still get your check from the system, there might be no cause to suggest that the system has not met your expectations. Dunno.

    Chris

    • Walter B February 13, 2019 at 8:59 am #

      That is correct, as long as the direct deposits (which is what they do now) continue to be made, the deal is being fulfilled and nobody can complain and they can do this forever regardless of circumstances. If those deposits can only buy one loaf of bread one day as in the old Weimar Germany, that is our problem. Whether that ever comes about or not is completely up to the other nations of the world that continue or stop accepting US dollars in payment for goods supplied to us. The only way that the USD can still survive then is if this country becomes totally self sufficient in every way possible so that it does not have to buy anything from anybody else.

  93. revilo February 13, 2019 at 9:23 am #

    Solid explication of the sources of real hate in this country:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X4HS2kZl_L8

    • revilo February 13, 2019 at 9:26 am #

      “Dang…this fighting hate thing is profitable.”

    • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:45 pm #

      ex plication? whats that?

  94. seawolf77 February 13, 2019 at 9:29 am #

    Trump said Beto rally in El Paso only drew 200 people. It actually drew over 8,000 people to Trump”s 6500. Trump said this was probably the end of Beto’s campaign since he had such a pathetic showing. At his rally he changed “Build that wall,” to “Finish that wall.” The compromise proposed bi-partisan has 200 million less than before the government shutdown. It contained 20 billion less than what Trump had 6 months ago. As time goes by congress slips him a little piece of paper with an ever decreasing number on it and Trump says “I’m a great negotiator. I wrote “The Art of the Deal.” HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Trump looks around and says “We won.”

    • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 9:42 am #

      Seawolf

      For once, we agree. Trump will take a hit with his base if he settles for $1.37 billion for the wall. Trumpsters, myself included, believe the wall is needed to control a border that is out of control for many factors.

      He better have a plan B or his credibility will definitely take a hit.

      Alert. The National debt just passed $22 trillion.

      The published number in El Paso was 8000 inside, capacity, and estimated 10000 outside with Trump and 7000 for Beto.

      Ted Cruz suggesting this AM that financial settlement over El Chapo conviction be used to build the wall. Gee, maybe Mexico is going to pay for it after all.

      • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 9:49 am #

        John it is pointless in the back and forth with seawolf. He wants open borders. He wants the drug cartels and human traffickers to have free reign. He hates America fundamentally and wants it changed into something you do not recognize. He calls it a marathon. The people he loves are winning because the powers that be love them and subsidize them. An easy servile population to keep down the way it is in Central America. The servile population that will support their betters, the Elite, in perpetuity.

        • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 11:26 am #

          Read the book, SSL. It explains why the global elite want the border open and as many drugs crossing it as possible.

          Hint: The cartels are just a tool.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

            Thanks for the recommendation John. I will add it to my list.

      • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 11:36 am #

        “Alert. The National debt just passed $22 trillion. ”

        Sounds better when it is called 22 thousand billions….

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 9:45 am #

      Just come out with what you really believe for once and for all and stop playing games. You hate America as founded and you want it transformed into a borderless, cultureless society where all control is top down and the common person is powerless and completely unrepresented. You want ignorant hillbillies as you describe them yourself replaced with Central Americans and any other foreigners you feel are superior. Ultimately you want Spanish to be the first language or most widely spoken language in this “country”. And you want a one party state.

      • seawolf77 February 13, 2019 at 12:11 pm #

        I beg to differ. You are the one that hates America. You are the one ranting and raving about changing it before it’s too late. You are the one saying what’s wrong with America. You are the one going to Nazi rallies pledging your allegiance to a con man. I told you at the beginning I couldn’t understand Trumptards because I didn’t see that much wrong with America so why elect this radical candidate. You are the one who sees everything wrong with America. I am the one who sees everything right with America. You’re the one who hates America.

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:23 pm #

          Which Nazi rally did I attend? I love you but you don’t love me. That is the truth. There are several of you here like that. You are so mean and hateful to people who are your “fellow citizens”. You feel entitled to talk any which way to people and you don’t seem to understand then why people go to someone else. Perhaps that’s the psychology of the Trump phenomenon. But will you ever stop to consider those things? Apparently not at this point. No, you want to place me at a Nazi rally.

    • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:45 pm #

      Paso is a shit ole.

  95. JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 9:30 am #

    One action that shows the futility of the CC fixes

    The governor of California just shut down the high speed rail project in California because gasp, it costs too much. The Sacramento to San Diego project is now going to cost $100 billion dollars, too much for even spendthrifty California.

    The cynical side of me says that now they will have more money to spend on indigent care and UBC experiments.

    A real hit for the Green New Deal as the feasibility of high speed rail has taken a hit.

    One question, why the heck does it cost so dang much? How come Japan, Europe and China can afford to build high speed rail?

    JHK’s input a while back was, Improve the current railroad system to optimize its speed, access and cost. Forget about high speed rail for now.

    High speed rail works as a substitute for congested air travel on long hauls between cities, How about limiting it to that function and use improved existing lines for the rest, an example is the Coaster in California.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Walter B February 13, 2019 at 9:43 am #

      Have you considered the implications of this John? With every day that passes and every failed effort to solve any problem or do anything worthwhile, our governments are proving beyond any doubt that they are totally worthless, completely corrupt, and incapable of accomplishing anything but making the politicians stinking rich. Thank about that.

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:11 am #

        Yup!

        • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:15 am #

          Just as JHK and many other prophets have predicted. The breakdown of order and the United States due to the ineptitudevand corruption of the Federal Government.

          Walter B

          Recommend you read the book I am reading to understand the why’s of what is going on.

          In the Shadows of a Presidency by Daniel Estulin

          • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 12:26 pm #

            He’s a well known and respected conspiracy writer who has been on Alex Jones and no doubt, Coast to Coast. His writings on where the New World Order wants to take us are frightening.

          • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:47 pm #

            Agenda 2030?

            G5?

            Chemtrails?

            DEW? now were talking.

  96. 100th Avatar February 13, 2019 at 10:01 am #

    I believe the host has mentioned the lack of debate or voice for opposing opinions on campus. Now it appears it’s everywhere. Of course, I hate to say that Janos told us so, but…

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/todays-progressive-race-hate-moment/

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:16 am #

      There is no escaping the “progressive” inquisition. It is a real inquisition as it was in the dark ages. They will set up death camps soon enough. If you don’t believe in progressive ideas ranging from race to climate change you are wicked, a denier, whatever nomenclature is in vogue for the day. They are the most religious zealots you will ever come across. They most closely compare to Islamic fanatics in their zeal. That is why they have much in common with Islam and want Islam to come into domination in the West. If you ever see someone called a White Supremacist just know that they are probably telling the truth. Reason. That is the worst thing that you can be according to “progressive” ideology. So that label indicates someone that “progressives” really hate. And they hate truth because it is inconvenient to their worldviews. Thus why you have reached a conclusion that you hate to acknowledge, but you know it is true.

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 11:09 am #

        SSL

        You are right. The most vicious folks in the room are the Progressive anarchists.

        Islam is a religion based on the fear of God, that men and women must be afraid of not doing things precisely and in order in relation to God.

        Good religion for a group of people who want to dominate the public with intimidation.

        Truth is a foreign word to Leftists, who live in a world of lies that support the ends justify the means.

        SSL, recommend you read the book I am pushing

        In the Shadows of a Presidency by Daniel Estulin

        It will put in the whys of all the BS that the forces opposing Trump are doing. And it is super scary!

        • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 12:27 pm #

          Yet the Koran says, His Mercy exceedeth His wrath. Not that I want them to triumph of course.

          • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 4:05 pm #

            Janos, in church we had a missionary from India to the Muslims talk to us about Islam last week. The thing that impressed me the most about the dogma of Islam is the fear of Allah that is driven into Muslims from birth. Not a God of Love, but a God of fear.

            He stated that when he would talk to them about the grace of Jesus and try to get them to accept him as the human presence of God, they would recoil because they were afraid to go against the threat from the teachings of Mohammed. Conversely, the ones that went through the emotional barrier, forgot quickly about Mohammed. Interesting!

          • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 6:31 pm #

            Many Christians have forgotten that fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. Jesus is their buddy – and that’s the way bums talk too.

        • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 12:54 pm #

          But at least you don’t call climate change a ‘progressive idea’, since you are aware it’s based on science, JohnAZ.

          Nature doesn’t care about progressives and conservatives.

          It was Margaret Thatcher, arch-conservative, who set up the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.

          She was as right wing as they came, at the time, in British politics but she was a scientist, so she knew what she was talking about on the matter.

          Not that it stopped her massively promoting car travel (buses were for losers), but that’s a different matter.

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 12:56 pm #

            Happy to be a loser 🙂

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:26 pm #

            And there is nothing wrong with conserving resources and cutting your energy use to only that which is necessary. I agree with you in that Alba no matter the whole climate change matter. Is that acceptable to you? Would you accept me into the fold or do I have to believe in global warming despite attempting to do the same as you on the resource and energy front? Why won’t you believe that another ice age is highly possible?

          • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:49 pm #

            Right Wing?
            Apparently charges of racism come from a comment Thatcher made about too many Asian immigrants coming to England….

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 2:59 pm #

            SSL, you completely misunderstand my point. There is no fold. That’s your folks – and I don’t mean AGW-wise. Nor am I being mean – folds are nice places to be and it’s kind to invite people in as long as you don’t coerce them!

            You are already perfectly acceptable as a person with a point of view. I also have a point of view, but I’ve read a lot more on the topic over a much longer time. In fact I’d go as far as to say that I’ve genuinely forgotten 100 times more than you’ve ever read on the matter and I’d put my house on that. I don’t keep up with it as much as I used to.

            I don’t expect you to agree with me but I’m not going to let you away with putdowns in the form of referring to AGW as a ‘cult’ or ‘religion’. That’s a tactic with a clear psychological purpose. I obviously accept that science keeps being improved and honed and understanding increased – that’s the whole point.

            But once on holiday I met a woman with skin like a rhinoceros and lungs I’d hate to see at close range, given her cough (she was lovely and great fun) who was waiting for science to disprove the relationship between cigarette smoking and cancer and show that it was all a hoax or a misunderstanding. There are limits! And you know how much money the tobacco companies put into disinformation about the link, even when their own documents eventually proved they knew.

            And of course there will be another ice age. It’s even quite possible that AGW will hasten it. But it’s not going to happen in the lifetime of anyone with any meaningful relationship to anyone alive now. We have more pressing climatic problems to deal with that will affect your boys and my grandson – and everyone else’s.

            It’s great that we both believe in conserving resources. But if you ever come to Edinburgh I’ll hire a car and take you to all sorts of places, throwing petrol conservation and CO2 to the wind for the duration 🙂 . One has to cut loose occasionally…

            And I never make comments about climate science proactively – only when someone produces trigger words like ‘hoax’ and ‘cult’ – if I were religious on the matter, I’d be dropping sermons in there all the time!

          • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 3:05 pm #

            “And I never make comments about climate science proactively”

            Finding a comment somewhere some time where I have may show that to be technically inaccurate but it will still remain true as a generality, I think!

          • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 4:15 pm #

            GA

            You know my opinion on AGW. The physics of the situation predict the warming of the oceans and the air. But many factors are in play.

            The problem is that each person adds to the CO2 load. Overpopulation drives AGW and will only make it worse.

            The “fixes” are politically undesirable which means that the only improvements will come from Mother Nature dropping a bomb in our laps. Reaction seems to be the only recourse.

            Until the average Joe is ready to change, it is a waste of time to try to change things.

            Just wait, things WILL change.

    • BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 10:57 am #

      Pretty good article Avatar. It looks like Arnold Gingrich’s old mag has some life in it after all. And to think I’d given up on Esquire. My take : who gives a sh-t about the precious obsessions of the left?, carrying on 24/7 about queers and drag queens, making a fetish out of ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ (which aren’t even words) their wierd weather climate change cult, their threats against our physical safety, which are laughable … all I know is they hate me, they hate us, and act accordingly.

      Brh

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 11:13 am #

        BRH

        Read the Estulin book I have been pushing. It explains what the Left is doing pushing Color politics and that the sources of the power exertion are much higher than the Color and gay folks. The real enemies are much more ominous.

        • BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 12:03 pm #

          I’ll definetly check it out on your recommendation. Thanks.

          Brh

  97. JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:10 am #

    Newsom vs. Trump

    The narcissism wars.

    The losers US.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 10:24 am #

      They (the Elite) will be losers when our Real Leader arrives on the scene. He will destroy them once and for all.

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 11:15 am #

        We must be very cautious about picking a savior.

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 1:50 pm #

          The best one is in the mirror.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:28 pm #

            But the one in the mirror has such limited ability to change anything in the real world other than that ones’ very limited actions. Now if the one in the mirror were of greater means I guess it is a different story.

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

          I don’t want to be cautious anymore. I want to throw caution to the wind. I am tired of waiting around.

      • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 2:51 pm #

        To Kpup, when someone writes about Black on White murder, that is ray cyst.
        All the ‘trayvons’ and ‘Freddie Greys’– they be victims, in Kpups world.

  98. If the future is between those who will never give it up unless it is pulled from their cold dead fingers and those who are sufficiently motivated to do so, expect the latter to prevail.

    Life imitates Art, not the other way around. As John Michael Greer put it in the last podcast, science fiction is the Present viewed through a fun-house mirror.

    Its a fact borne by psychological research that a man feels invincible by the appropriation of the powers of his technology, whether a wooden club, double-breasted suit, cellphone, or machine gun. A car gives a person an unconscious, visceral feeling of having power. In reality, the windshield and body panels can be pierced by a small bullet; the engine is entirely dependent on the operation of small constituent parts, and the all infrastructure that keep it viable to operate are perhaps an even bigger type of machine, with similarly numerous points of failure.

    The question of appropriate use is a propo. If a country uses a technology like the military as a sort of employment office, or a police force, or even a costume party, its less liable to be fully functional when real existential threats are looming. Those threats are only real for a few countries in the world; the United States is one of them. But the threat of climate change will be existential for everyone on Earth. When some critical threshold of liability and resolve is crossed, it will be far past the time you should have sold the SUV and started riding a bike.

    And if you’re determined to operate a coal-burning power plant and holding the ignition keys you’re going to be staring down the barrel of the United States military with AOC as Commander in Chief.

    Domestically your Car Culture is going to be dead in the water- and you’ll have the 2nd amendment to thank for that. In the future they’ll put the collectible car bodies on concrete blocks to spend the rest of the millenium as the pieces of public art they really are. Those finely wrought sculptural forms will become limited edition, rare pieces of art of some value. The drivetrain will become polished specimens in museums like the Smithsonian.

    And the rogue operators who attempt a little joyriding without a permit? The underground clubs risking death to relive the hot rod days of 1970? They may harden into a dedicated underground group more similar to drug-users with affections for exotic chemical species- a danger more or less only to themselves. They will experience thrills of a caliber that the average American takes for granted every day at the present moment. The Zero to Sixty.

    They will go fast, but the pipes won’t be loud. For if they be loud, they will be detected, and be triangulated.

    • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 11:22 am #

      You sound like Hitler’s crowd talking about the Jews taking over Germany and removing them using the government to do so.

      AOCs ideas are the fulfillment of The Long Emergency, as such they will eventually happen in response to natural causes, such as peak oil.

      Forcing the issue will definitely get a response. A 30 odd Six or 12 guage pointed at you.

    • Walter B February 13, 2019 at 11:34 am #

      All good points Deb, although whether the problem is actually caused by the burning of all of the crap we use for fuel is the root cause or not, humans, and certainly NOT Americans are never going to conserve, use less or not use them at all. Have you seen the trends lately in monster SUV land barges? They are massive and so are the people in them. And the demand for more and more electricity grows exponentially every year. And while I would love to beat on them all for their lack of caring and their mass consumption, the providers of fuel and electricity make far too much money off of the mass consumption and wield far too much power over the sellout scumbag politicians. This is one problem that will only be left to “solve itself”.

      • capt spaulding February 13, 2019 at 12:12 pm #

        I agree with you, Mr.B.

      • It doesn’t matter. The price of oil will go to zero. The window of opportunity to sell the car and adopt a different lifestyle is about 3-7 years. If you have a particularly beautiful car, it may be worth it to preserve the body.

        Food production and distribution will be placed under the administration of civil military equivalents.

        • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 3:54 pm #

          Everything maybe, not a lot of folks remember the rationing during WW2, but it was severely enforced.

          Curiosity, why do you think the price of oil goes to zero..or do you mean the availability of affordable oil will go to zero.

    • BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 12:05 pm #

      Sounds like Mad Max.

      Mad Max was produced nearly 40 years ago.

      Brh

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:08 pm #

      Life imitates Art, not the other way around. As John Michael Greer put it in the last podcast, science fiction is the Present viewed through a fun-house mirror.

      That is a good one. I remember him saying it. But that science fiction is actually an expression of the present zeitgeist is no great revelation. Write a story yourself and by the time you get to the second paragraph you’ll make the discovery yourself.

      Literature in the collective always expresses the present moment. How could it be any other way? Individual authors may be more or less out of touch with the current zeitgeist but the law of large numbers comes into play when considering all authors grouped together. Then psychology does the rest.

      JHK had asked for an explanation/confirmation that the trend has been to dystopian science fiction as apposed to fiction which was committed to spreading the human stain across the galaxy. Colonization, that was the 1930’s science fiction of amazon babes and ray guns.

      Humans are basically imitation machines and the degree to which we realize that fact defines our freedom. Explaining that would be another post but self awareness of action and belief is necessary to be free. If you can’t think you can’t be free.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:10 pm #

        opposed

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:28 pm #

        Point being imitation machines are all about the present.

  99. The SJWNYT reports 11,581 American casualties in Iraq reported so far with confirmed claimants numbering 2,318, while Congress is finally acknowledging the issue of widespread refuse burn piles creating massive amounts of extremely hazardous air pollution.

    The SJWNYT is only reporting what the Army’s own science division knew by 2008, because those scientists were collecting air samples and analyzing them. The airborne cadmium, lead, mercury, and exotic products of combusting things like PEX, jet fuel, synthetic materials, destroyed vehicles and depleted uranium, along with human waste, were mixed with smoke and desert dust and breathed deep into the lungs of those brave American heroes and now, they’re coming up with brain cancer.

    • Walter B February 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm #

      In the old days when we humans polluted the signs were easily seen by all. Huge piles of horseshit throughout the cities, foaming oozing rivers that floated decaying flotsam and jetsam downstream everywhere. Lingering haze from coal fire ovens, stoves, locomotives and everything else.

      We have somehow managed to clean it up on the outside so that for the most part is does not look nearly as bad as it once did. Unfortunately the pollution is still there and in far more vile, evil forms as radioactive waste, RF and microwave and 5G brain frying invisible waves of death. We have certainly NOT cleaned up our act. We have simply gone underground with it. We are a species of idiots and one day many of us will pay the price for that. It is really so very sad because the things in life that bring the most joy and the most satisfaction have nothing to do with the crap we use to destroy this place. .

    • elysianfield February 13, 2019 at 7:20 pm #

      “The airborne cadmium, lead, mercury, and exotic products of combusting things like PEX, jet fuel, synthetic materials, destroyed vehicles and depleted uranium, along with human waste, were mixed with smoke and desert dust and breathed deep into the lungs of those brave American heroes and now, they’re coming up with brain cancer.”

      SnakPak.

      It smells like…(anybody?)

      • elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 7:24 pm #

        …victory?

  100. romanmanner February 13, 2019 at 12:46 pm #

    Ah yes, Jim- let’s just close up shop and wait to die.

    That’s a wonderful plan.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Walter B February 13, 2019 at 12:52 pm #

      That is not what Jim is suggesting, but it IS what Americans are doing – NOTHING to stop it. They only keep on keeping on, on the same course towards destruction.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:38 pm #

        Exactly right. NOTHING to stop it because they don’t even know what is going on. They think we are really going to Mars. They think global warming means palm trees on a beach in New England. They think oil is produced at the center of the earth with the same regularity and consistency that a man farts. They elected Trump, a man dedicated to being rich on the public dime and being angry at other people. They are out to lunch.

        A definition of insanity would be to expect that Americans will ever get their shit together.

        It is not going to happen! Instead we get the big change.

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 9:47 pm #

        Character is built on the shoulders of hardships and calamity.

        There will always be a small groups of folks that lead us through catastrophe.

      • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 9:45 am #

        I hate to say this but you can go back every year of the republic and somewhere, somehow, no matter if we’re in the throes of war with death and destruction everywhere or everyone is eating caviar and shitting Tiffany cuff links there is going to be someone who is shouting at the top of his lungs “The end is near! The end is near!” and not in 250 years have they ever been right. Never. Once, the Civil War, kind of close.

        • Walter B February 15, 2019 at 9:23 am #

          Well it may or might not ever fall off the cliff but it is getting more corrupt, more decayed, more oppressive every year and that is going to continue. Those of us that have been around a long time pretty much cannot believe how it was and how bad it has rotted. It is quite depressing and it only continues.

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:40 pm #

      That is frustration talking. The truth is that there are so many things to do you just don’t know where to start.

      Grab a string and start pushing.

  101. Mexicali and Calexico. The New river which feeds the inland Salton Sea in California, is an export pipeline of pollution, the SJWNYT reports.

    Trump should dam the fucker and divert it into a culvert to form a toxic sewage barrier. They’ll think twice before wading across if a haze of ammonia is stinging their nostrils.

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:23 pm #

      One man subs like the Japs had. Is the wall going to stop those?

      An illegal subs into the Salton sea and Jesus Christ. the lake is so salty the illegal walks to shore. Or he can dress like a carp and just swim.

      What some guys will do to work construction. Boggles the mind.

      • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:31 pm #

        You are so smart but you are so unfair in some ways. Nobody believes the Wall can stop every little thing. But even if it stopped 90% of illegal entries why isn’t it worth it? Tell me why.

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:57 pm #

          Because they will get here other ways and the only way to stop them is by not giving them jobs. But that is moot since there are no good jobs to be had and everyone is OK with them taking shit jobs anyway.

          Why you say? – Because there is no illegal problem in the first place. The whole thing is a diversion so you don’t observe rampant political theft. When was the last time a foreigner ‘stole’ a job from you. Most likely you were thanked for applying and wished good luck in your continued job search and another American filled job.

          As easy as the public is to fool Trump most likely has as little respect for most Americans as I do for him. That’s pretty bad. He is walking privilege.

          As far as ‘fair’ goes it is very popular to have an ‘open mind’ and to to be wishy washy and not have the balls commitment or strength to actually take a stand on an issue. That is considered fair and fact is I’m totally fair. Tell me how I’m not. Disagreement is not synonymous with unfair. Further to passively accept the hateful things that get thrown down in here condones the mistreatment of other people. Letting a person be ‘mean’ has nothing to do with being fair.

          I’m always willing to have my points of view challenged and that makes me more than fair. Given evidence I’ll change my mind.

          • “Humans are basically imitation machines and the degree to which we realize that fact defines our freedom. Explaining that would be another post but self awareness of action and belief is necessary to be free. If you can’t think you can’t be free.” – K-Dog

            “As far as ‘fair’ goes it is very popular to have an ‘open mind’ and to to be wishy washy and not have the balls commitment or strength to actually take a stand on an issue. That is considered fair and fact is I’m totally fair. Tell me how I’m not. ”

            You’re not unfair. You begged to be proven wrong, though, so here goes: A shit job is just unfairly remunerated work. The presence of illegals prevents fairly remunerated work- here a “shit job”.

            A “shit job” are the unfairly remunerated jobs.

            An illegal workforce prevents just remuneration. If economic’s basic premise is that work is fairly remunerated if it returns to the public a worthwhile benefit.

            While the Mexican is happy to work for an equivalent of 7.5 times the average Mexican daily wage, they can afford the “middle class” dream of home ownership, and community prestige.

            The American’s unfairly remunerated earning power in the same class cannot dream of home ownership or community prestige.

            So please, consider changing your mind. Adaptation to these distortions of a social contract are corrosive. Reaction is appropriate and the remedy is removal.

            My thesis is that these practices are inherited from an economic pattern that can be traced back through 10,000 years of human slavery. Its high time America realizes being a nation is not running a theme park for plantation Capitalism….

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:02 pm #

        The folks just do not get it because they have filled with BS from the media for so long.

        The Deep State wants the drug trade to prosper, prosper not survive. It finances them

        If your desire is to slow and stop the drug and human trafficking trades and counter the Deep State, the wall will not do the job.

        It will take 1400 miles of barrier, plus increased tech at the ports of entry, plus surveillance of the gaps, plus increased presence of IcE and the Border Patrol, plus increased surveillance by the Coast Guard including ASW technology. Plus increased pressure on Mexico, Venezuela, and Columbia to stem the tide, plus more apprehensions of el Chapo,

        All the above is needed to dent the trade.

        Note one of the tools of the Deep State is divide and conquer, tear down each idea individually and say it won’t do the job.

        The last thing the Deep State and their globalist sponsors want is the throttling of drugs. So those of us who want drugs stopped, and GGG is high on the list, we need not just the wall but every counter measure available to stop the poisonous evil.

  102. SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:40 pm #

    So $2.2 million dollars worth of meth has been seized in border checkpoint inspections in Laredo, TX. More drugs pouring across the border. BUT we don’t need a Wall. We don’t need anything. Why worry? Let the hicks and rednecks overdose right. Less to worry about and more resources for the highly educated, sophisticated coastal urban dwellers and all. You wonder why I don’t like what has happened to America? I never realized you hated me and my family and friends so much but you have made it perfectly clear since we didn’t do what you wanted and we voted for Trump. Thank you for letting me know where we all stand.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 2:41 pm #

      And yes I am fucking emotional right now. Everybody has feelings. Too bad you don’t care.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm #

        So don’t do meth.

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 2:59 pm #

          Did you watch Breaking Bad? Meth does not have to come over a border.

          • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 3:52 pm #

            AH HAH!!! Yep that is why the whole series is about the interesting interconnections between production both north and south of the border. TROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 3:04 pm #

      I never realized you hated me and my family and friends so much but you have made it perfectly clear

      I do not know who you are, what you look like or even if you have any family. Claiming I hate you is irrational but saying you are emotional gives you away. You are trolling and if you don’t want me going there in the future you will cut the bullshit you are pushing my way. ‘Emotional’ was an attempt to trigger me.

      What is clear is that you have an agenda to push and want me out of the way. Do you think you are the first? Look around.

      • BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 3:23 pm #

        Don’t you have your own blog, Kdog?

        Why not work on that?

        Brh

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:24 pm #

          Half the fun is being here, not being there.

      • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 3:50 pm #

        First off I could care less if you read what I post or not. That is your choice. Second off I don’t know you either and have no idea what you say is true or not. However, I tend to take people at face value since what choice is there really in a forum like this. What is totally clear is that you are very self-important and think you have the world figured out. You don’t. Get over it and move forward. And stop pushing your bullshit on everybody. Your high and might bullshit where you think you are always checking people. You are the biggest troll on the blog roll. That’s a fact jack!

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:24 pm #

          could NOT care less.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:40 am #

            Oh yeah, that’s at least the second time I made that mistake.

      • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:19 pm #

        And your whole “if you don’t want me going there in the future…” You called me a troll within the first couple of days that I started commenting here and have continued up until this day. Commenters coming here should not have to be threatened by the likes of you. This is not your blog and you have no right to talk to anyone here like that. You think you can dissuade people from having their point of view and speaking out. Get real. I could care less what you do are say to me in the future because at the end of the day you have always been shitty to me and many other people here. Just another person who thinks they are so elevated above everybody. Yet you name yourself after an animal who licks its testicles and anus. Good thinking!!!

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:21 pm #

          Oh yeah and eats feces and vomit. Can’t forget about that wonderful canine trait.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 6:34 pm #

          A Louisiana Spit Fire! Different than a Texas Spitfire….

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:38 am #

            Lol so I am blushing a little but I get super passionate super quick. My ex calls me a firecracker. He joked sort of with his buds once (and I overheard) that I sometimes required physical restraint. He was referring to one of our fights where he had to physically prevent me from burning a pile of his clothes I threw out in the yard :-p. The make up we had after that fight was amazing. You fill in the blanks.

          • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 9:39 am #

            You got to be from Louisiana. French Settlement?

          • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 11:52 am #

            You’re talking about Karlos?

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm #

            OMG LOL DAYUM seawolf you are too funny. How the heck did you figure that out – well sort of?? I mean I know you are from New Orleans. So, actually not French Settlement but right next door – Port Vincent ;-).

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:38 pm #

            Not Karlos silly :-P, his name is Kyle.

    • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:10 pm #

      SSL

      The seizure is token, to make the Deep State look like it is doing something. The volume of drugs pouring into the country is astronomical. The war on drugs is a joke. And thanks to the Deep State nothing is going to be done about. Trump’s capitulation on the budget Bill will just oil the drug pathways. Veto the bill. Build the wall.

      • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:47 am #

        Wow ok that is scary! He better not cave on this bill. It’s horrible to entertain the idea that the Deep State and the cartels are working together. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but I still am. Moreover, I am just disappointed Trump hasn’t done more to take them out of power. I know he is just one man but my hopes were sky high!

  103. K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 3:11 pm #

    New trolls always think they can take on the Dog. It is an expression of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I’ve been here a long time and I’m good at this. Now I’m shoveling snow so have at me; I’m gone. Easy pickens and I know pride won’t stop you.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 3:58 pm #

      Shovel away! There is only one person I can think of that comments here that discusses trolls and trolling on basically every thread. The same person who accuses others of being trolls. And triggering you? An expression of one’s feeling within the moment is not an attempt to trigger another per se but if you say so. I guess that was easy then even though I wasn’t even talking to you lol. And no one is looking to “take on the dog”. The dog is so self-important he believes that people want to “take him on”.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 4:24 pm #

        I knew you could not resist. I’d have more pride.

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:35 pm #

          You don’t think I know the psychological games you are playing? You didn’t shovel nothing. You wanted a response and you got it. You and I both know that. Stop playing your games.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 4:31 pm #

        It is a somewhat symbiotic relationship though I don’t recall ever being asked. Some points of view are in common. Scratch put it well this week:

        No digging in the garden, dammit, but by all means DO get them gophers if they happen to pop their little heads up!

        But since I’m not paid I do what I want.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 4:34 pm #

        Are you going to claim there are no trolls here? None at all? Inquiring minds want to know.

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:36 pm #

          The thing of it is K-Dog I don’t know who the trolls are and who are not and I don’t care. I see people expressing opinions. I enjoy the conversations. I jump in.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 4:55 pm #

            So you don’t care that people are sponsored to be here to push particular points of view. That people pretend to be other than who they really are does not bother you. That some are sponsored to be here with the sole purpose of suppressing the legitimate points of view of others you find to be a good thing. Might makes right and all that stuff. Because if you have a problem with my ‘trolls’ this is what you condone.

            The thing of it is SSL I don’t know who the trolls are and who are not and I don’t care. I see people expressing opinions. I enjoy the conversations. I jump in.

            That or I’ve been fucked with a few years ago big time for being here and I’ll never let it go.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 4:57 pm #

            Or both!

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:29 am #

            I guess the way I see it is if I don’t agree with what someone is saying it doesn’t matter to me whether they are speaking from the heart or are being paid to have their opinion. Either way I will have to be convinced in order to change my mind. Marketers and advertisers are after us every day so it wouldn’t be a surprise I suppose. I won’t give in to bullies. No they deserve a good fight. Don’t you think? I am sorry you were messed with here. That isn’t cool. Based on the things you are saying I understand why you are not so trusting of others.

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:37 pm #

          But congratulations for you because you did put me in a bitchy mood. So I guess in the end you got what you want since you want to be top dog. Good for you!

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 4:57 pm #

            Try not to forget.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:19 am #

            Lol ok will do :-).

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:39 pm #

          And when I thought we had made progress and I have no problem giving you cred where cred is due and this is how you treat me? Then you strike when I least expect it. I should have known better. That is that naivety of mine so my bad for that. Not your problem.

        • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 4:44 pm #

          And by the way my post was primarily aimed at seawolf but you thought it was for you. Same story. I try to be as nice to him as possible even though we disagree and he can not help but just continue on with name-calling. And for what? Just because I have my views and he has his and we don’t see eye to eye. I hope you are enjoying this and laughing and having a good ole time because you have pissed me off and I am so not in the mood for this.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 5:22 pm #

            If you are a genuine person I’m genuinely sorry.

            Thing is genuine people are reluctant to bring up the subject of trolls. The though of Homeland Security biting them in the ass is scary. But having been bit, I feel different but that’s me and my situation is unique.

            Since most citizens are blithely going through life unaware of the degree to which their reality is being managed and because they have no reason to ‘go there’ Happy happy joy joy status-quo is pushed ad-nauseam along with any number of things a 12 year old should be able to intellectually dismiss. That is America.

            FYI I’m not the kind of person would have a good ole time because I pissed you off. You started this and if you are real you are also unaware of the history you tromped on top of. In such a case, a bit of naivety (not to be confused with stupidity in any way) about government methods combined with a belief that our government is a moral organization could give you a pass. ‘It can’t happen here!‘ That sort of thing. But now you know that the possibility that you might be in over your head at least exists and that could temper your keystrokes. Unless you work for U. Sam or a lobbyist, then you have nothing to worry about.

          • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:27 pm #

            well you can ignore them.
            I dont read every post here [nor do I hate every Israeli].

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 5:36 pm #

            Yes once there was only one dog, me. Then this place turned into a kennel. I wonder why.

          • seawolf77 February 13, 2019 at 9:14 pm #

            Janos say “Getting pissed at someone online like swearing eternal vengeance on mosquito.” Bzzzz

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:13 am #

            Thank you K-Dog. I am a genuine person and I genuinely accept your apology.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:18 am #

            I guess I am over my head because from everything you are saying we are being spied on. It’s the whole Edward Snowden thing all over again. The only thing is I am an ordinary person so why would the government waste time and money spying on me?

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:29 pm #

          I wonder if you are an evil genius?

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:36 pm #

          people are sponsored to be here to push particular points of view.

          Okay, I will bite the dog. Do you have any proof?

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 6:07 pm #

            Why do I need proof? Of what use would it be? I’m not here to convince. I have better things to do.

            Actually I do have proof. I have a thumb-drive with a phone home equation group virus on it that I received online from a ‘David L Riches’. When ‘David’ met me in person at Planet Fitness he directed me to ‘his’ website. All the text on his site was pictures. It was very strange. No text at all. not a single letter.

            It was not obvious but I look at webpages with a little more scrutiny than the average person and I found his multiple page site to be completely devoid of text. A real web site had been set up and photographed and the pictures had been infected.

            I downloaded the whole thing. I knew what was up. I looked at the raw files and could not see anything. Then I had it plugged into a government network. Specifically I had it plugged into a firewall that belonged to law enforcement.

            It took less than a minute for I.T. to shut the computer down and they showed up in person right away. The firewall had been breached and somewhere in the beltway area a computer had received location data about the computer the thumb drive had been plugged into.

            I had been given an ‘equation group‘ virus with the idea I’d share the website with other people and when they looked at it everyone in my ‘organization’ would be identified by a transmitted data packet.Tax dollars at work. The same kind of dollars that want to build an embarrassing stupid wall.

            Bits on a stick and I sniffed them out.

            This happened in the Obama days and I hate that prick for letting this shit go on but what was he besides a rubber stamp for the status quo. Now the Orange Gibbon runs the show and I hope he really is not getting along with the Swamp because if he finds out about the full tool-set there will be hell to pay.

            I don’t even have an organization and still they were afraid and had to try and mess me up.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 6:32 pm #

            I could be like Nancy Kerrigan and cry ‘Why Me’ but I know the answer. It wasn’t personal, but I have ‘doom’ politics just like JHK does. Future Americans, the ones who live, will be farmers. I doubt many will make it but those are the consequences of the greatest resource mis-allocation scheme of all time. Doom is critical dissent and America is too oily a place to put up with that.

            After a few years I came to agree that ‘doom’ political orientations while attractive to thinkers for good reason also could attract a certain kind of sick puppy which might do mayhem to make a point. If they feel like they want to be a big dog. None have so the fear is exaggerated or homeland security is doing their job.

            One thing that came across loud and clear during my fuckifications is that black suits and white shirts don’t think a person can have a ‘doom’ political bias that is founded on facts and science and sound reasoning. The assumption is that anyone who dissents is a possible threat and that their only motivation for dissenting is because they are bat-shit crazy and the scum of the earth.

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 6:35 pm #

            ‘homeland security is doing their job’.

            I don’t go with that explanation. The fact that they were fucking with me shows they haven’t a clue about what it really means to make us safe at all.

  104. BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 3:21 pm #

    ‘Ojos Locos’ Crazy Eyes

    That got a big laugh with the Spanish women in the house.

    I could hear them taking amonst each other in Basque and Spanish, laughing like hell, the words ‘ocassio cortez and ojos locos interspersed with mocking laughter, rubbing their eyes while bantering back and forth. Women can be cruel.

    Brh

    • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:28 pm #

      Women can be cruel. No more evil than men, imo.

      • BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 5:54 pm #

        No less either.

        • malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:56 pm #

          Who knows?
          Men do most of the killings. Women have the abortions.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 8:49 pm #

            Women typically get men to do their killing for them.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:45 am #

            Wow killing? How about just like, “Baby will you please beat them up for me..pretty please. :-)” But killing? That is kinda out there.

            And I am just playing ok!!

  105. malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:35 pm #

    Point me to a comment of mine that says you shouldn’t have proper borders.–Green Alba.

    Point me to a comment of GA that says White majority lands
    should stay that way.
    You deride nationalism and White Power at every turn. Janos figured you out fast, Ms.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • BackRowHeckler February 13, 2019 at 5:58 pm #

      You say clever things sometimes. Short and concise.

      Brh

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:28 am #

        The honeyed words of praise via your keyboard are indeed nectar to my mind.

    • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 6:05 pm #

      “Janos figured you out fast, Ms.”

      I love that you think that’s an insult, malthuss 🙂

      According to some that’s his job. Or to encourage other people to show their racist colours. I wouldn’t know.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:36 am #

        He works for Trump?

    • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 6:20 pm #

      I posted a link with some nice nationalism further up. Didn’t you listen to it?

  106. malthuss February 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm #

    Green Alba
    I have said elsewhere that the UK is a small country and it can’t absorb everyone. It doesn’t matter what colour they are – there wouldn’t be room for the whole of white America. [White America].

    Me,

    Yet UK takes in more legal immigrants than all other countries, as of the 2000s.

    I noted that USA takes in more than all countries combined and was corrected. That was sooo 1990s data.
    UK took the lead, on legal immigrants.
    Still, with illegals USA takes in more.
    Since UK is so small, why take in more humans? especially ones that take 4 wives and have 20 kids by their harems?

    As Janos as noted, they breed on the White mans dime.

    • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 6:18 pm #

      Your comment makes no sense whatsoever, malthuss, without the data.

      Please provide verifiable statistics that show the UK takes in more legal immigrants than ALL other countries. I hope we can agree internal EU migration doesn’t count.

      I’m struggling here, because the latest figure I’ve come across is for 2007, when the UK took in 237,000 immigrants. The average for the US over the period 2010-2017 seems to be 1,063,134 per year. See my problem? All from Wiki.

      So I think we need some clarification. But it doesn’t need to be in bold. Standard type is fine.

      “why take in more humans? especially ones that take 4 wives and have 20 kids by their harems?”

      Some verifiable info. on this would be useful too, obviously. One example from the defunct News of the World doesn’t count.

      • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 6:38 pm #

        The figure for the US seems to be people given legal status per year. Not sure how that relates to people as they come in. I’m not familiar with your systems.

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:11 am #

          I was shown a link, about 7 years ago, that showed UK took in more immigrants than USA.

          There was a best seller that got 630 BAD reviews and not one magazine [sooo1990s] gave it a good review.

          Brimelows best seller, Alien Nation.

          He stated, correctly, that as of 1990 USA was taking in more people than all other nations combined. 10 years later, UK was taking them in.
          I will try to find the data.
          here is some but its not concise enough for me,

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_United_Kingdom

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:22 am #

          Our system has lost count.
          40? million undocumented or given amnesty??

          I was very wrong about UK letting in millions a year.
          Perhaps circa 2008 they did.

          You stated UK was a small land. So why add more immigrants?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 13, 2019 at 8:51 pm #

        Are you including refugees in this or are you being slippery again?

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:19 am #

          And we both know kids of immigrants are less likely [when Muslim] to assimilate and more likely to go on the warpath.

          this from a comment at Yahoo about that Congress muslim
          who told off convicted DT appointee, Abrams.

          Minnesota is home to the largest Somali slum / community in the United States, and over the last six years, at least 22 Somali-American men have left the Twin Cities and joined al-Shabab, two of whom as recently as July 2012.

          These are only the confirmed cases; in fact, some community members say the number could be as high as 40. Dozens more from Minnesota and around the country have been indicted for providing material support to the terrorist group. Virtually all have been convicted.

          Many were inspired by recruitment videos like the one described above. Moreover, the FBI is “proceeding as if recruitment efforts are still occurring here in Minnesota,” according to Kyle Loven, a spokesman for the agency’s Minneapolis branch.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 4:01 am #

            That new Somali Congress Critter is kicking Jewish ass. She apologized only to double down. She is going to be thorn in their side for her entire term. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks – who supported bringing them here overwhelmingly.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:42 am #

            This phenomenon is known as Hijrah. Migration for the cause of Allah. One of the tools of turning all non-Muslim countries Dar-al-Harb (House of War) into Dar-al-Islam (House of Monotheism). This is using Islamic terminology and isn’t just me being hateful. This is a real goal of Islamic theology and jurisprudence and millions upon millions of Muslims believe in it.

    • GreenAlba February 13, 2019 at 6:36 pm #

      Out of interest, malthuss, do you consider this site semi-officially a white supremacist site? And that people not obsessed with white supremacy shouldn’t be here? Just wondering, since what brought me here was reading The Long Emergency, not any thoughts whatsoever on race.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 7:45 pm #

        When a site is identified as a good place to go fishing for dissidents I think the whole play-book comes along. A package deal. Doom and Racism are on the same list and identifying possible terrorists in their ranks is top priority. That is what the official paycheck is all about after all. The cover story.

        Remember that part when they said ‘Americans are going to have to give up certain freedoms’ when the towers came down but never said what the freedoms were that we were giving up? This is it. Well managed censored freedom within limits. So well managed the general public has no idea what is really going on.

        My enlightening experience happened early on before they got their shit together. They were keystone cops then. By now they are an institution that won’t go away I’m sure. Perhaps not unlike one of those viruses that infect and make you sick and then hide in your nerve cells for years before coming back for more. And they probably have their act together better now.

        And we are family GA. Your people are full partners as are Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The arrangement is working out great. If an American Agent needs to look through the webcam of a possible terrorist/dissident/freethinking American citizen technically they can’t do it. To get around the legal issue they have London do the webcam spying for them. Since anybody who is determined to be a Targeted Individual gets spied on your people have steady work.

        I ran an experiment to see if I was being spied on. The bait was taken hook line and sinker. The response was British.

        I also doubt that they have familiarity with the uncertainty principle. I’m sure they are not quantum mechanics. The uncertainty principle asserts a fundamental limit to the precision with which complementary variables can be known.

        In this case being spied on definitely affects the discussion and as such impairs freedom. I’m sure spies shall disagree, for as Upton Sinclair said:

        “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

        The most quoted phrase here and for good reason.

        • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:08 am #

          Wow ok so then if you have actually detected someone trying to spy on you no wonder you are so untrusting. That is scary. I put clear tape over the camera on my tablet. Hopefully that works?

        • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 8:43 am #

          Yes, it’s all grim, K-Dog.I read the details of your ‘incident’ some time ago – on your website I think. Scary stuff.

          Anybody watching me would seriously need to have too much time on their hands. My doomerism remains pretty much inside my head, apart from conversations on here. Even my friend with whom I used to have the odd sardonically doom-spattered lunch every few months is worried about depression so we don’t talk about it any more. Most of us have no real options anyway, and she’s on thyroxin so won’t last long if the SHTF and supply lines break down.

          Re the Brits spying on you, don’t the NSA return the favour over here?

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:21 pm #

            Too much time on their hands could be called billable hours but some are salary.

            I doubt the NSA spys on Brits. Brits spy on Brits and from what I have read it is not considered a big deal. Perhaps you can enlighten us on local attitudes.

          • GreenAlba February 15, 2019 at 9:45 am #

            I don’t think my impressions would be all that helpful, K-Dog, unfortunately. I see discussions when laws are changed, salami-style, and some people resist the increasing surveillance while others lazily go for the ‘if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve nothing to fear’ approach and ‘but we have no choice because…terrorism’.

            David Davis, the erstwhile utterly useless and incompetent Brexit Secretary (at least two Brexit Secretaries ago) did previously do something useful by instigating a campaign that provoked a wider debate on the loss of civil liberties in the UK.

            I couldn’t say how the spectrum of views among the public compares to anywhere else, though.

            We’ve had some major scandals where the police, rather than the spooks have been discovered to have infiltrated groups (for some reason active environmentalists have traditionally been considered a major risk, in terms of subversion of our solid, capitalist values) and police officers have even ended up marrying (sometimes bigamously) individuals they were watching, and fathering families with them, then disappearing overnight back to their own lives, with the truth only being discovered years later.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:16 am #

        You use these jejune terms, ‘ray cyst,’ ‘White [fixed that for ya] Supremes [hell, Diana Ross is black].

        ‘OUT OF CONTROL’ screams headlines,

        https://www.westmonster.com/uk-population-66-million-increase-of-400000-in-one-year-59-due-to-migration1/

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4967690/Million-illegal-immigrants-not-removed-UK.html

        • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 11:02 am #

          “You use these jejune terms, ‘ray cyst”

          I fear you are confusing me with someone else, malthuss. That’s certainly not my style. The rest of that line will have to remain one of life’s little mysteries. No need to clarify, thanks.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:40 am #

        do you consider this site semi-officially a white supremacist site?

        —- I don’t even consider Kerseys SBPDL that. I didn’t go much to ‘Chimp out.’

        And that people not obsessed with White supremacy shouldn’t be here?
        —- Perhaps I was too tough with you. I apologize. You are welcome.

  107. ozone February 13, 2019 at 6:39 pm #

    SoftStarLight,
    Okay, I noted the exchange. (To my mind, a waste of space and keystrokes.)

    I feel I must make one small observation: If indeed, you are the delicate and easily swayed snowflake your missives have portrayed, then I have to issue a grave warning. You will be one of the very first to be used and cast aside in the cruel regime that you pretend to hope for (and that’s probably the next to incorporate).

    Readers of dystopian or other-worldly *fiction* (much less real-life anecdotes) could easily imagine that. …And this is why you’re suspected of play-acting. Mighty hard to believe that anyone with the amount of naivety you exhibit would be wetting their small-clothes over coming cruelties of a severely constrained future. Not enough cynicism spicing to be considered a serious partaker of JHK’s visions.

    Plus, savior worship is a dead giveaway of the nicely-twinned cult of victimhood and uber-statism. Anyone that’s taken a brief glance at history would see where this leads.

    That’s my 2 cents… and I don’t care if you’re ‘real’ or Pinocchio. I consider your opinions to be “unhelpful” to future survival, at the very mildest.
    Free Speech. (Til it ain’t; and even if it’s paid for, I guess.)

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 7:03 pm #

      Mighty hard to believe that anyone with the amount of naivety you exhibit would be wetting their small-clothes over coming cruelties of a severely constrained future.

      So unreal she could be real. She is fascinating that way. Getting the cynicism right is indeed hard to do. It has to be founded in reality or it is nothing good. Even then you have to be careful. I’m happy to say I’ve reached a state of controlled optimism and it is a very good place to be in. No magic deceptions yet still comfortable being able to accept what comes my way one day at a time.

      A future of Mars, stars and flying cars. We really don’t need these deceptions to be happy but somewhere along the line they crept in and like a adolescent with a stolen cigarette we were hooked.

      • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:01 am #

        Are you serious? So that is pretty nice of you too :-). I am glad to be fascinating and not just some sort of annoying troll :-p. I don’t understand what y’all mean that I am not getting the cynicism right? I am not trying to put on a show. I have experienced some rough times in my life but I am not giving up on humanity at this point.

    • SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 11:54 pm #

      Wow I am deeply flattered that you are speaking to me Ozone. I have been waiting for this moment for a while now and I want to get it right this time. So, all I will say is that I am both a delicate “snowflake” (not necessarily easily swayed though) and also a tough chick when need be. I’m a southern girl that is all. I really do appreciate you warning me that I would be one of the first people used up and spit out when it gets really bad. Just so you know, I have mentioned being afraid of what the future holds several times here. And don’t think I don’t know what cruelty people are capable of. That does scare me. Thus I am learning more about self defense, etc. I am not hoping for a cruel regime I am hoping for justice that’s all. I don’t know what to say about the savior worship part. I am guilty as charged I guess. Perhaps that stems from fear? I am sorry my comments are unhelpful. Tell me how to be more helpful. I am not looking to be a problem or annoyance. Nobody is perfect. But I am not playing. Like I said before I post what I feel and I realize it can be all over the place.

  108. FincaInTheMountains February 13, 2019 at 7:26 pm #

    Regarding Surkov’s Article in the Russian Press

    Of course, Vladislav Surkov set himself up deeply, and now THIS will be called Surkovshchina, not Medvedovshchina or Avenshchina, despite the fact that he is absolutely complimentary with Medvedev’s article on Russian gravity after 6 years, when according to his plans in Russia will establish the reign of Hillary Clinton or in “bright image of her”.

    Those who liked the article of Surkov, I am proud of because they are touchingly pure-hearted people trying to see the good in everything and the reason for optimism. And those who didn’t like the article of Surkov, I’m proud of because they, like the Americans, rebelled against the Deep State, without understanding anything, instinctively, genetically remembered their history and, like the Black Hundred in 1612 have risen against against the Black World Project just like the Americans, who without knowing anything about their own history, genetically remember Enclosure, the War of the Roses, William of York, and the Sherwood Forest with the Doomsday Book.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

    I am even proud of Alexander Dugin, who as a Gnostic and heretic, still managed to understand the very essence of this article, in which such a clever and informed person as Vladislav Surkov, speaking about the future of Russia, never mentions Orthodox Christianity or Communism.

    All the same, Dugin is an amazingly intelligent man!

    And this similarity suggests that I am not in vain writing in this blog, since Surkov’s article is the most startling confirmation of my theory of the world colored projects.

    Everything has so intersected in it that I don’t even know where to begin the analysis of this article.

    But I’ll definitely understand this, but for now I’ll start by completing the series of posts “Venezuela, Libya, Bushes, INF Treaty and the threat of a new cold war through the prism of the theory of world projects”, which, again, obviously providentially, was not completed a week ago and now will be written with the article of Surkov in mind.

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 7:53 pm #

      Lipsum Finca

      • FincaInTheMountains February 13, 2019 at 7:59 pm #

        The dog barks, but the caravan moves on…to the naked American border

      • ozone February 13, 2019 at 8:33 pm #

        K of Dog,
        Well, it’s a fine example of fantasized past correlations leading to mistaken futures! Could “Candy Crush” possibly be as informative?

        • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 9:06 pm #

          What would be really cool is if there was a button to make it play. Sometimes Russian words and names sound really good. This plethora of words has to be good for something besides just moving the scroll along and taking up space. It puts everything in the rear view mirror and it is only right it should pay its way. Give back what was taken.

          • FincaInTheMountains February 13, 2019 at 9:18 pm #

            What would be really cool is if there was a button to make it play

            No problema.

            Here it comes:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJraXG4deXU

            My groundhog is always with me song (Marmotte)

          • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 10:43 pm #

            Thank you, I enjoyed that. Definite redeeming value!

  109. seawolf77 February 13, 2019 at 8:28 pm #

    Cause when you’re down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the king!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEOZtJm8pU

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 10:44 pm #

      nice

  110. K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 9:00 pm #

    Most of the beliefs and attitudes of the present day will be overturned with the demise of the industrial orgy, like the idea that humanity follows an unerring arc of progress, that men and women are interchangeable and can do exactly the same work, that society should not be hierarchical, that technology will rescue us, and that we can organize some political work-arounds to avoid the pain of universal contraction.

    The summary is that America is out to lunch and the concentrated heat energy of petroleum allowed all sorts of things which are socially unsustainable to flourish for a short period of time propped up by petroleum magic. Now that time is past and we argue about how the deck chairs should be arranged on a sinking ship.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • I think the literal Coast Guard manual on the subject of the sinking ship is, try to save the ship.

      The illegals are like ballast. The more illegals we have in the ship, the faster we are liable to sink. Since they have their own ship (which frankly seems a bit more seaworthy at the moment) we might as well cast them off.

      Because the last resort is leaving the ship which is the same as giving up. You don’t adapt to a sinking ship, you react to it.

      • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 9:40 pm #

        Good analogy. The Reaction?

        Abandon ship!

        The problem is, the water is full of sharks, so try to save the ship.

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:55 am #

          go where? South America?

    • FincaInTheMountains February 13, 2019 at 9:30 pm #

      Did you feed your groundhog today, Dog?

      The only reason we are still using the petroleum is because the American dollar is hooked on it.

      No other reasons.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 10:38 pm #

        The fact that there are no substitutes has nothing to do with it?

        • FincaInTheMountains February 13, 2019 at 10:59 pm #

          Purely for political (in fact, ideological and I would even say, religious) reasons – suppression of new technology.

          The relativistic nuclear technology of burning plentiful U-238 and Thorium based on Bogomolov’s linear accelerator on the reverse wave has been proven to work for at least 20 years now. It could also burn the radioactive waste of current nuclear industry, solving the problem of storing it for hundreds of years.

          But of course implementing it would mean end of the petrodollar as a reserve currency, which in my opinion is actually NOT the main reason for suppressing this technology.

          Learn Russian and listen what this man has to say:

          Why in the modern world nuclear energy has no alternative. Bluff of the green energy and cold fusion. What is the state of the Chinese atom and what are its prospects. Why Russia is in an advantageous position in the field of energy security. Andrey Fefelov and Igor Ostretsov, a specialist in nuclear physics and atomic energy, are talking about this and many others.

          https://dentv.ru/content/view/igor-ostretsov-yadernaya-energetika-edinstvennyij-shans-sohraneniya-tsivilizatsii/

  111. capt spaulding February 13, 2019 at 9:42 pm #

    I’d like to mention something that has been on my mind for a while, and has been jogged to the front recently. Working in a warehouse, I have contact with over the road drivers all the time. A couple of years back, I noticed that some of the drivers remarked that they didn’t have to clean their windshields as often, that there didn’t seem to be the number of bugs like before. I noticed the drop in butterflies and bees, they being the most noticeable of insects to me, but never thought that much about it, although there have been some stories about it in the news. Recently, I’ve been seeing stories of dramatic reductions in insects from various parts of the world, culminating in an article the other day about a study done recently that predicts about a 25% drop in the insect population in the next 10 years, with worse to come. Apparently the major causes are: shrinking habitat, pesticide and herbicide use, global warming, and other causes. One of the studies I read about was conducted by a scientist who studied an area of protected rain forest in Costa Rica about 30 years ago, and decided that it was about time to do another study of insect population density. He said that the population density had been reduced by 90% in the past 30 years. The area surveyed was off limits to any human activity, and that herbicide and pesticide use could be ruled out. Apparently a lot of insects are very sensitive to changes in climate, and he can only speculate that the drop is related to global warming. I have read similar stories ranging from studies in Germany, Southern California, and Australia, all of which show a decline in their insect population. If this turns out to be true, it would have an apocalyptic on the world at large. Silly as it may sound, I never had to clean my windshield of bugs once this summer, but until reading these articles, hadn’t thought about it. Now it seems to tie in with what I’ve heard the truckers say, as well as what I’m starting to read. I’m just curious if anybody else has noticed this, or run into any news stories about this subject.

    • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:18 pm #

      Could be CC, could be the eating up of their required environment by our development. The Monarchs population has been severely curtailed by the destruction of milkweed by development.

      Too many humans are making a significant impact on everything. Mother nature will balance herself out, no worry.

    • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 7:19 am #

      Capt spaulding

      A very recent report here projected a 50% reduction in insects within 50 years and none left in 100 years, if trends continue.

      And yes, I remember when I was young, the windscreen used to be totally insect-splattered when you got back from anywhere – now it’s a rarity (observations from my sporadic car-hiring!).

      Midges still doing well in the Highlands and West coast, however – scratch, scratch…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fOnLa_TB-4 🙂

    • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 10:45 am #

      You listen to Martenson?
      Only he mentions ‘no bugs on the windshield.’ to my knowledge.

      I have lots of bugs. Ants. spiders. Silverfish. Indoors they dont get montsant oed.

      • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 12:23 pm #

        Then you can be grateful for the biodiversity of your local habitat, malthuss.

        Silverfish are gross. Only ever saw them in the cupboard of a house I shared as a student. Never seen anything move like that. Yuk. Spiders are good. Even the ones I avoid.

        I haven’t listened to Martensen on bugs, but I don’t know if you were talking to me.

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:44 pm #

          It was in response to Captains mention of bugs on the windshield.
          Chris M mentions this. He went to Costa Rica and did a talk about bugs were even lacking there.

    • The cause is the widespread and continuous use of broad spectrum insecticides, the destruction of habitat (and replacement with biologically useless landscaping or asphalt).

      People hate bugs.

      Recently, a paper was published demonstrating that bee mortality was caused by the synergistic lethal effects of all the pesticides.

      In conventional agriculture there is no realistic limit to how many times you can spray your crops, and no incentive to hold back. Pretty soon, these companies just spray before during and after, continuously, year round. So background levels stay constant.

  112. beantownbill. February 13, 2019 at 10:12 pm #

    I missed the climate change comments, but here’s my $.02:

    I know how science works, as I spent a lot of time with scientists. In brief, science seems to mainly work by consensus. Once something is accepted by the scientific community, that thing is very hard to change. Scientists are generally very, very intelligent, but they can be wrong. For many years the concept of the ether was accepted – until the Michaelson-Morley experiment disproved its existence.

    That said, once a consensus is reached, scientists tend to be correct most – but not all – of the time. Science is self-correcting so concepts can be modified or cast aside if later evidence exists to disprove an existing explanation.

    First of all, climate change is a misnomer in the sense climate always changes, but usually over long time periods. It validates the basic idea of the I Ching,a 2,500 year old Chinese parlor game that evolved into a kind of cult: That everything changes except change itself (in other words, there’s always changes).

    Take any reasonably long time period and it can be shown that climate changes in some matter. Questioning the existence of climate change is futile and a waste of time. I think the real issue is two part: in what way is the climate changing now, and what is responsible for it? I just wanted to try to define the issues. I’ll try to go into more detail in another post, as space is limited here. My own issue is not just space, but time needed to follow through.

    • JohnAZ February 13, 2019 at 10:28 pm #

      CC is an issue as it changes the geo politics of humanity.

      The four horsemen come forth when things change too rapidly.

      For example, where are all the American dry land farmers going to go when the Ogallalah aquifer dries up and the Great American Desert come back into place.

      Nations are set up to serve required resources and needs for selected groups of people’s. (That is why the diverse USA will never work), with common languages being the commonality of the nation.

      What happens when the resources and needs of the peoples change due to CC shifting weather patterns around.

      The four horsemen are chomping at the bit.

      • beantownbill. February 13, 2019 at 11:53 pm #

        I tend to agree with you, but there’s no such thing as a sure thing. That’s why people go the racetrack and bet on a long shot; they do come in.

    • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:32 am #

      BUT consensus is not proof.

      100 scientists say G-d exists. Another 100 say the opposite.
      A consensus is or is not agreed on. Or is it?
      And life goes on.

      I think we are in a warming cycle within a greater cooling cycle.
      JHK in ‘TLE’ mentioned when Europe was colder and people could skate on some lakes that no longer freeze.

      • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:56 am #

        Malthus

        The primary item is that nobody knows, that is why I believe the key is to go slow and do the things that make sense to reduce contamination of the environment. When I was in Boy Scouts, a key axiom was to leave a campsite better and cleaner than when you came. Good advice for Mother Earth.

        The Gulf Stream controls Europe’s climate, keeping it maritime and warm. Whatever controls the Gulf Stream controls Europe. Europe is the source of most of our long term weather history so what the Gulf Stream has wrought on Europe is the basis for that history.

        Which has nothing to do with North America.

        Consensus of any group of people is suspect.

        Story – if you line up 100 economists on a straight line, they will all be pointing in different directions.

        Same with CC scientists.

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 10:46 am #

          You tube- Chemtrails. Weather wars.

          Did the government start the California fires?

      • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 10:20 am #

        That God exists is not a scientifically verifiable proposition. Neither is its opposite. So the scientist’s opinion is only significant in that s/he is aware that some of the ‘God of the gaps’ issues have been resolved by science over time, so the need for a ‘God of the gaps’ lessens in terms of human conundrums.

        But it is never entirely verifiable one way or the other, scientifically speaking. No matter what science finds about the origins of the universe, you can still choose to believe a deity is behind it all if you want to. And speculate on what was behind the deity or if that even has a meaning. So we can use science, reason, logic, intuition, experience, personal preference or whatever we like to come to our conclusion. But it can’t be proved one way or the other. Bit of a bummer but there we are.

        • elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 11:49 am #

          ” So we can use science, reason, logic, intuition, experience, personal preference or whatever we like to come to our conclusion. But it can’t be proved one way or the other. Bit of a bummer but there we are.”

          Alba,
          QED

          • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 11:59 am #

            I’m not recommending intuition and personal preference in relation to climate *science*, EF, if that’s what you’re getting at 🙂 .

    • Pretty weak reasoning but I will wait until I read part 2 of your dissertation

  113. FincaInTheMountains February 13, 2019 at 10:43 pm #

    In brief, science seems to mainly work by consensus. == beantownbill

    That is the most absurd statement I ever heard.

    In theory, science should be absolutely rational, but intuition, especially physical intuition, as applied to science, also becomes a rational discipline, since it, like the smile of a Cheshire cat, suggests a region of occurrence of new knowledge, and disappears without a trace, and then, as a result of this hint, new knowledge is extracted by absolute rational methods, as if no intuition existed and never did.

    And the most remarkable theory in the world is the so-called “Einstein Arc” which describes the aforementioned phenomenon.

    • beantownbill. February 13, 2019 at 11:05 pm #

      Sorry, I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. People can do science, even good science, but if the scientific community doesn’t accept it, that work goes by the wayside, like Velikovsky’s or even Tesla’s ideas. That’s what I mean by consensus. It’s akin to a political or power process, the tyranny of the majority, in this case not a bad thing.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:48 am #

        Follow the money. JP Morgan killed or suppressed NTs ideas and inventions.

        The ‘scientific community’ is not one happy, homogeneous voting block.

        I think its about business and getting money via grants.

        I agree with Fin.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 4:06 am #

        But one guy is out in front who gets “it” before everyone else. Community? Even an amoeba throws out part of itself (pseudopod) in front to drag itself forward. And sure most who consider themselves misunderstood and shunned geniuses are cranks. But a few aren’t – and they make all the difference.

      • elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 11:53 am #

        Bill,
        The scientific method used to involve the empirical method…reproducible results using peer reviewed data.

        Consensus? (Sheeeit….)

    • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:32 am #

      In brief, science seems to mainly work by consensus. == beantownbill

      That is the most absurd statement I ever heard.

      —Okay.

      • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 12:43 am #

        I know that in the former Soviet Union scientific progress was hampered because science had to be consistent with socialist dogma. They had some weird things going on for a while. Finding info on it now though is damn hard. Socialists won’t fess up to the embarrassment and the popping red eyes of their haters sure are not going to give the straight scoop either.

        • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 12:44 am #

          Not the kind of <dogma I approve.

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 12:48 am #

            dogma

          • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:53 am #

            chow chow? or any dog ma.

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:49 am #

          at least USSR didnt fluoridate the water.

          • elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 11:55 am #

            “at least USSR didnt fluoridate the water.”

            Malthuss,

            And how many older Russkies have a full set of teeth? I haven’t had a cavity in over 30 years.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 4:09 am #

        Yes and no. Peer review is important. Even gifted minds can get too narrow chasing their own theories. And results need to be able to be replicated. These aspects back up his statement. But he leaves out the fact that individuals tend to make the breakthroughs that lead to new paradigms. See my post above.

        • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 10:48 am #

          Freud had lots of theories.
          You knew of E Bernais. What did he find about how to control people or get them to buy something?
          Was it to use humor?

    • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:58 am #

      And science is being too influenced with global politics.

  114. beantownbill. February 13, 2019 at 10:52 pm #

    Before one discusses whether climate change is mainly caused by man-made injection of CO2 in the atmosphere, there’s an interesting article in the July, 2018 issue of Forbes Magazine. The upshot is this:

    Since 1965, the US has introduced 264 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, more than any other country. That represents 22% of the total. The US has reduced its annual CO2 production by 800 million tons, more than any other country. Given the progress Asia has made in modernization, it’s annual CO2 production has increased by 3.1%, more than the rest of the world.

    The point is, the rest of the world now produces CO2 4.5 times that of the US, so even if the US stopped all CO2 production, which I believe is impossible, most of the excess CO2 would still go into the atmosphere and oceans. Maybe CFNers, at least in this regard, ought to stop calling us a shit, greedy country. Of course, Janos says I don’t really care about America, so maybe you shouldn’t listen to me.

    • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 11:12 pm #

      Yes, and all this goes to show you are not going to save the world by putting a bumper sticker on your car. If America stopped burning coal and oil tomorrow all that happens is anthropomorphic climate change is delayed. It is absolutely not stopped. China picks up where we left off. End of story.

      • K-Dog February 13, 2019 at 11:14 pm #

        This knowledge absolutely would change the way the problem would need to be dealt with but since it isn’t being dealt with, not to worry.

      • beantownbill. February 13, 2019 at 11:49 pm #

        Said much more concisely than I did.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:34 am #

        China has 5? times as many people.
        Search ‘most polluted cities’ and look at the images of wunderkind, China.

      • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 10:01 am #

        Maybe it slows, and maybe not. Maybe we are heading into an ice age and AGW is a godsend, and maybe not.

        We just do not know. Go slow.

  115. SoftStarLight February 13, 2019 at 11:27 pm #

    OMG I can’t believe some of the stuff I posted today lol! Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Fig Flash 448 calmed me down and now I am just staring at my pretty little fingernails. Say what ya’ll want to say about me. I don’t care. Do you?

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 12:30 am #

      I’m glad you are feeling better. What color is 448?

      • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 12:46 am #

        Do not tell me you have to go to Walgreens to find out.

        • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:00 am #

          Not looking good SSL. You were here and I was active and nobody is going to believe that you jumped on to post your nail color as 448 and then jumped off without reading my response only three minutes later. Five-teen minutes went by in which you could have simply said what color your fingernails were and you didn’t. You didn’t know obviously but I could be wrong, it is possible but this is serious Baysean data.

          I knew I could nail you when the color for 448 was not listed online. But like I said I could be wrong which introduces another problem. I can’t be dismissed as crazy.

          Now massive scrolling has to go on to move me up the page.

          Finca……………………………….!

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:09 am #

            Sorry, I scrolled up and was posting up thread. Check it out. The color is called Fig Flash. Not sure what to tell you about the online search.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:15 am #

            Now maybe you are spying on me lol. The color of the polish was mentioned in the original post. I didn’t say you were crazy. But your focus on me is interesting. I don’t see you reacting this way to others. There must be something about me that gets you to the point that you can’t help yourself lol. Does this mean I would have a Valentine if you didn’t have Mrs. Dog :-)?

        • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:12 am #

          The thing is I really am a nice dog and when you claimed to be upset earlier that part of me which said you might possibly be real felt like making things right. My inquiry to you had a great deal of sincerity besides being evil genius. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt to a huge degree.

          Now I’ll have to be content with your statement:

          ‘Say what ya’ll want to say about me. I don’t care.’

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:13 am #

            Oh Ok, I should have reloaded before I posted this. Then I’d have seen your response. That is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:19 am #

            Well you know I care but I have to say I don’t to protect myself. And I say it a lot when I am upset. I got the nail polish from Wally World by the way and not Walgreens. Now you have me looking it up too. It’s weird that I can’t find it right away either. But it is on my nails.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:22 am #

            Ah finally found it.

            https://www.sallyhansen.com/us/nail-color/insta-dri?shade=figflash448

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:31 am #

            I found that right away. It doesn’t give the colors. But don’t worry. We are past this. You can stop looking.

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:33 am #

            Wait, I looked again. Very small print. Not obvious at all. I call it plumb.

          • GreenAlba February 14, 2019 at 7:33 am #

            “I call it plumb.”

            Only if you hang it on some string, K-Dog 🙂

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:07 am #

            LOL that is cute isn’t it Alba :-). I guess he meant plum.

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:14 pm #

            I need to ‘b’ more careful.

  116. malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:50 am #

    Green Alba, I was wrong.

    UK is #3 and doesnt take in millions a year.

    BUT with those from other EU countries and refugees, how many I dont know.

    here, my dear,

    https://www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/10-countries-that-take-the-most-immigrants?slide=9

    • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:52 am #

      Germany is 2 and USA is the biggest loser or winner, if you are one of those entering USA.

  117. K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:30 am #

    This from the WA PO

    A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis.

    Economists warn that this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rate, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills.

    “The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market,” economists at the New York Fed wrote in a blog post.

    A car loan is typically the first payment people make because a vehicle is critical to getting to work, and someone can live in a car if all else fails. When car loan delinquencies rise, it is usually a sign of significant duress among low-income and working-class Americans.

    Once when I had only skills and no job history I decided working as an electronic technician would be a good idea. I talked my way into a job and after I got it I learned that the person before me was at the job only 3 days before a tow truck had hooked up to his car and was towing it away. Re-posed it was. He was last seen running down the street after it. I figure he must have paid the driver off and split knowing others would be back after it. The car must have been worth more to him than the job.

    Seven million delinquencies. Think of the stories. Some have to be way more interesting than mine. One could call it a clusterfuck!

    • Walter B February 14, 2019 at 9:23 am #

      Can you say, “subprime auto loans”, as in Big Short 2? When you consider the price tags on these massive Land Barges, it is no wonder that they are becoming so difficult for our overstretched, underpaid public to make payment on. At seven and eight year terms, the loans cannot even be paid off before the barges take a crap and die. Never, NEVER borrow money for something that will not be paid off before it goes away.

      • BackRowHeckler February 14, 2019 at 10:00 am #

        People meeting their student loan obligations is a big problem too. It seems to be debt you just cannot get out from under.

        Brh

      • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 10:06 am #

        Credit card debt is increasing faster than personal savings now

        A formula for disaster.

        Just a part of the national insanity.

      • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 10:26 am #

        Borrowing to pay prior interest is a presage to bankruptcy.

        Want to disenfranchise the US, get everyone to live on credit, get over leveraged and then pull the string.

        For the Deep State, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

        The Millenniels are dupes for this, arch out.

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:32 am #

      I know someone who lived in his car for several months. And know of a few people who had to resort to the same thing. People are not only struggling to pay their car notes but they are also struggling with putting groceries on the credit card, paying the utilities and house notes. There is a lot of struggle going on out here but how do you get elected officials to care? That is why I get so angry sometimes and why I want drastic measures. I see this going on around me and it hurts my heart. I try to help people as much as I can. Bringing food to neighbors struggling etc. but can only do so much.

    • BackRowHeckler February 14, 2019 at 9:51 am #

      Dog, I checked out your site.

      It seems like you put a lot of work into it. I found it interesting, has that west coast vibe about it.

      You seem to have good technical knowledge and that generator you built with bicycle parts is intriguing. I was thinking of trying something like that myself as soon as the weather breaks, maybe using water power we have here and a large truck alternator we have in the barn,

      All in all a pretty substantial dude. Good work.

      Brh

      • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 11:20 am #

        Thanks, It does keep me out of trouble. Having the motor on the bicycle recharge the battery is useful on hills and Seattle is very hilly.

        I have that huge pile of links on top and I’ll admit most are crap. I’ll have something much better in my new version. I look forward to getting it like this place complete with reader comments but I’m writing all the software from scratch. I have my reasons. I’ll have a way for readers to vote links in and out of my link pile and to add to my newspaper rack too. Both those things will be in my new version but improved.

        For those who don’t know, some of us have green names instead of black on top of our comments. These are links and mine takes you to my personal website.

        The cool thing is that when I get the new version going I’ll be sure to get something up on a regular basis. As it is now adding anything to the page means hand editing a huge file.

        Thanks again!

    • AKlein February 14, 2019 at 10:07 am #

      Mr. Dog, we should not be surprised at so many car payment delinquencies. As I recall, sub-prime car loans (aka liars’ loans) have become the mechanism whereby the car business has been kept afloat. Net-net – people with bad credit were given loans. That scheme is destined to fail. So now it’s failing, just like the sub-prime mortgage business failed.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 10:49 am #

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvjA6oLJgMA

        • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 11:53 am #

          Good link, thanks.

          It describes a country in financial trouble. A counter-narrative to the America is Getting Great Again story that media is wanting to push these days.

      • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 11:37 am #

        AK, that makes sense. Personally I hate credit because in some ways, not all, I’m a skinflint. The idea of paying more money over time or less money up front has always been a no brainier for me. Pay cash.

        A pair of documentaries has been released on the FYRE scam recently. It portrays an aspect of the millennial generation which shows a generation of people transfixed by image but who have no interest at all in substance. A generation who believes life is one big party and nothing else. Somebody told all of them life is all about appearances and they took it as mantra

        I won’t generalize and say all millennials are like this but the ones in these documentaries are (so were we back in the day) and some of those who are delinquent on payments are not suffering from any bad luck. Some of them just don’t think.

        FYRE fraud.

        People transfixed by image but who have no interest at all in substance don’t really ‘get’ money. No wonder they get into trouble. They get it and they spend it but that is the only part they ‘get’.

        And on their shining city on a hill all the beer is free.

  118. Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 4:20 am #

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/12/tech-elites-donor-class-unite-with-gop-dems-to-outsource-white-collar-american-jobs/

    It’s full court press. And Trump is playing for their side. The Elite want to transform America into a Non-White country in order to ultimately get rid of Western Civilization and all countries. And that goes along with what the Republican and Democratic Money Men want too. That it favors the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to bother the Republicans for the most part. Thus they are “cucks” or more simply, just utterly cynical, playing the role of professional losers out of class loyalty and private gain.

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:26 am #

      The Republicans and the Democrats are ultimately the same party in different clothing. The difference in garb is meant to fool the people. Both parties or only about money and certainly not about country. The fact that Trump is even toying with this idea and touting it reveals that he is a liar and a fake. The level of my disappointment is unimaginable to put it mildly. So I want to be clear in my comments from now on. If we are ever to change the system as it is it will require a dictator. The reason I am saying that is because this Elite class of people are not going to give up power willingly. They are very clear that they will do anything to retain power and money including the destruction of their fellow citizens. That is the only reason I say that we do need a dictator to step in and take them out. I want someone in power who loves us. White Middle America. Not someone who despises us and wishes us demographic death. It’s because of love and not hate.

      • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 10:26 am #

        Revolutions eat their children the dictator you will get is not the dictator you want. A benevolent dictator is like a white buffalo. Very hard to find.

        You are right about the elite class not willing to give up power willingly but that would be true of anybody. You might benefit from a reading of Animal Farm.

        The elite class is the most educated and yet you want to get rid of them because they are ignorant? What genius demographic would you replace them with? I’ll agree they are ignorant but so is everyone else. A Cyrus, an Antonine, one of these would be great but there is no way to find one and put them in power by revolution.

        The number of idiots who thought Trump would come in and bring people to their senses by ‘waking them up‘ don’t get what people are all about. That was another brand of wishful thinking but related to your feeling. I can’t justify your feeling by calling it an idea.

        People don’t do what is right or wrong for soul searched reasons mostly. They do what their friends like. Then their emotions lie and tell them they are good people when they get the strokes. Their morality is fickle and it built on sandy foundations.

        The benevolent dictator who could put things right is out there but so are a hundred serial killers for every genius benevolent dictator you could find. There is no mechanism to select and elevate a good guy to power. Revolution is the least likely way to accomplish the task.

        I don’t see a way out SSL and I don’t think you do either.

        • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 10:28 am #

          is built on sandy foundations.

        • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:31 am #

          I am so sad. Why isn’t there an answer?

          • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 10:55 am #

            Why should there be an answer? I mean that most sincerely. The world is as it is and it is not how we want it to be. Somewhere earlier this week, but maybe not here I wrote.

            ‘Mars stars and cars, like an adolescent with a stolen cigarette we were hooked.
            Snuck behind the garage and lit up we did and those strange feelings we sucked in, we had to have more.

            An orgy of industrialization happened. Had the whole thing proceeded at a more measured pace social attitudes perhaps would be different, but as things worked out we have childish beliefs in an adult world.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 11:06 am #

            So basically you are saying let the chips fall where they will and put on our big boy and big girl pants on and deal with it? I guess I want to be prepared because it will get very bad…and is getting very bad.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm #

            Yet such Men do exist. All the heads of Europe nodded their heads wisely – a new Monarchy was born when George Washington assumed office. He would reign for Life and then pass it to his son. They were shaken when he willingly left office.

            A sure thing? No such thing in this world. But a real possibility if Earth call and Heaven answers.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

            Well that is certainly true. There is no such thing as a sure thing ever. But in life we have to make decisions not knowing what the outcomes will truly be. We take leaps of faith. I want to believe and I want to have faith. There is real truth and goodness. I know it’s real because I have experienced glimpses of it. We all have at some point haven’t we?

          • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 8:30 pm #

            Why are you sad? The world you envision sounds as boring as one of Trump’s speeches… wait a second, Trump promised you Utopia and he didn’t deliver. An all white world. A big huge fence to keep the brown out. Healthcare cheaper and better than the last. So much winning you’d get sick of winning. Trade deals that would pave America’s street with gold from overseas.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:22 pm #

            Trump never promised an all White world. You could have gotten to me but when you threw that in I felt like you were groveling and I just can’t let you have that much enjoyment.

    • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 10:18 am #

      You know, Janos, that if the new Left get ascendancy and we lose the Constitution they do not have a clue what to put in its place. What do you put in place of the best government in history? The only form that is more dependent on the people instead of the elite.

      Colorado is trying to pass a resolution to negate the electoral college with its delegation. Leftists out of control, I am ashamed of what Colorado has become. I am an Ex-Coloradoan and remember bumper stickers in the 70’s and 80’s saying:

      Don’t Californicate Colorado

      Fait Accompli!

      • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:24 am #

        But that is the thing John. Yes, our Constitution is awesome. But in my opinion our government is horrible. It does not serve “the people” in any way. It only serves corporations and the moneyed class. There really is no left-right. They are all one party at the end of the day. Again my opinion, but there is a lot of evidence out there to suggest truth in it.

        • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 11:24 am #

          The Constitution works when there is balance of power between the three parts of government.

          The Left, Progressives especially have had control of DC for too long and a lot of cowardly RINOs have not helped. Thus the Deep State has developed.

          The Left-Right conflict is for show, the real battle is between the Deep State and their global masters and the populists led by his royal Goldeness.

          SSL read Estulin’s book to understand The Who’s and whys of the Left wing takeover.

          Hint: It is not just the corporation that are at fault here. It is who is supporting them.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:12 pm #

            I’ll order it tonight. It sounds very interesting!

        • messianicdruid February 14, 2019 at 11:27 am #

          The CONstitution must be enforced by the citizens and it cannot be done alone.

          I want to see the video compilation of all the apologies of MSM members having to admit there is NO COLLUSION.

          • messianicdruid February 14, 2019 at 11:33 am #

            I should have said ‘no collusion’ by Trump.

            https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/429292-the-case-for-russia-collusion-against-the-democrats

          • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 12:03 pm #

            Yes, we must be the Salt. We must be the Gold. If not us, who?

            But again, all men are not created equal. A new Elite must rise, one not steeped in materialism and vice but rather humble before Heaven and eager to serve the People.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 12:16 pm #

            Obviously we are not going to get around the Elite. There are always more powerful people. The natural aristocracy you have mentioned before. But what a real blessing it would be if they did actually view their role as taking care of the people. I don’t feel that is a childish desire. Since they exist, why not pray that they will be benevolent and kind to those they can so easily toy with and destroy if they wish. Human history is littered with terrible Elites. We do need something entirely new.

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 10:51 am #

        In the 1990s, Colorado voters voted for Infanticide.

        Dr Mc Mahon or whatever the Boulder MDs name is or was.

        The Town Council held a dinner in his honor.

        • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 11:25 am #

          Yup, Colorado is a disgrace.

          • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 11:29 am #

            Colorado University=Berkeley East

      • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 10:56 am #

        The Constitution is just words on paper. Its political value is entirely determined by its implementation. Both political parties (but the Left by far) have shown a willingness to simply ignore it when it suits their interests.

        My point is that we don’t have to formally lose the Constitution to lose the values it codifies. The Left will keep it around like some shop rag they inherited, to be used when they need to wipe some filth from their hands.

        Each year the USA accepts about one million immigrants. Few of them could care less about the Constitution, or any other aspects of American heritage. They don’t want our values; they’ve brought their own.

        • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 11:28 am #

          Exscotticus

          You want a picture of Why?

          Read “In the Shadows of a Presidency” by Daniel Estulin

          It will shake you to your bones.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

          Well said. Interpretation and implementation. And of course, the “second set of books”. And if all that isn’t enough, why they’ll just ammend it a la the Blacks in South Africa who want to rob Whites legally.

          The 2nd Amendment doesn’t protect the other Nine or the rights of Americans – the actual guns do.

          • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 4:49 pm #

            >>> The 2nd Amendment doesn’t protect the other Nine or the rights of Americans – the actual guns do.

            Nice! I’m gonna use that.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 12:19 pm #

        Rich Whites of Spanish descent gone to pc seed? I mean Latin Americans would use one of their own I imagine.

      • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 1:58 pm #

        That is utterly horrible. More reason for a mom to just stay home with her own kids. How could anyone do this to a little baby??? And that site has several other stories at the bottom of the page regarding terrible “parents” who have killed their babies. I guess the depths to which humans can sink are deeper than abysmal! Truly nightmarish and scary.

  119. seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 10:10 am #

    Maybe not exactly how it should happen, but a 15 year drop in Medicare is certainly a great start.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/senators-introduce-bill-to-allow-people-to-buy-into-medicare-at-age-50-132337560.html

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:28 am #

      Giving this current government more money doesn’t seem like a great idea. They misappropriate funds and ultimately “lose” trillions of dollars. How about making the costs of medical care completely transparent and also lowering the costs of healthcare to more reasonable levels on par with other services. All healthcare as it is appears to be a money-making scheme. And the healthcare “industry” is literally holding people hostage at the most vulnerable points in their lives. The ultimate cruelty in my opinion.

      • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 2:37 pm #

        Medicare expenses per patient is about $11,000 on average. Can you imagine what this would be if private? So I don’t understand how you can say that.
        https://www.kff.org/medicare/state-indicator/per-enrollee-spending-by-residence/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

        • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 2:40 pm #

          the fact that Medicare coincided with Social Security at 65 years old is completely arbitrary. In fact it has changed. My retirement age is now 67. There is no reason Medicare cannot be lowered to 50 years of age. It would be like a tax break for companies, and overall the cost would be lower for the country. Insurance companies only work to a certain age i.e. when people start regularly getting sick. In my experience that age is around 50.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:18 pm #

            Wow 50 seems young to be getting regularly sick. What about the cost of medical care in general. The exhorbitant cost of medicines and treatments. That side of the equation needs attention too. The lowered age to buy in may be fine but our government would need to be more trustworthy. They “lose” too much money.

          • seawolf77 February 15, 2019 at 8:28 am #

            WTF are you talking about? Medicare is an unqualified success.

  120. Cavepainter February 14, 2019 at 10:13 am #

    Oeeie, 900 comments posted. James had better take lower profile; seems he’s become enough of a threat to draw in lots and lots of “bots” from the Ministry of Culture and Truth Ministry. Oh, oh, oh!

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 10:38 am #

      The old platform could get to 3000 a week but a lot of those were true bots with junk content. Random newspaper clippings, stuff like that. Mostly they came from Hawaii I figured out.

      It does not mean JHK is a ‘threat’, what it means is a lot of people like to get paid. That is why they work at the Ministry of Truth.

  121. stelmosfire February 14, 2019 at 10:51 am #

    Totally off topic but worthy of thought. I’m sitting here listening to my scanner as I always do and I here a call go out for my old truck (med 30). It seems a 19 yo was shaking a bottle of hot sauce with a loose cap and he got an eye full. Real genius award! So instead of rinsing out his eyes he calls for an “amblance” ($500) takes a trip to the ER (probably $1000) to have them rinse his eyes out. Guess who is paying? Go look in the mirror!

    • stelmosfire February 14, 2019 at 10:51 am #

      “hear”

      • stelmosfire February 14, 2019 at 10:54 am #

        Now that I think about it I guess it was probably a “loose cap” Valentines Day prank by his girlfriend. I wish I thought of that one back in my firehouse days!

        • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 12:24 pm #

          I took a class once. The teacher, an EMT told us about one accident: a van with a bunch of kids. A girl was giving a guy a blowjob when the crash happened. Her jaws clamped down and she ended up with a mouthful and he ended up shorted. I think she said they were able to reattach it. Maybe it works better know like Joey Buttefucko (sp?) said of his amputation.

          • stelmosfire February 14, 2019 at 12:44 pm #

            Janos, your mixing up Joey Buttafuoco with John Bobbitt, Easily understood as they are two icons in the history of the MSM. Speaking of Bobbitt we had the exact same type of incident in my town way earlier. It was a hot tempered Hispanic woman who caught the ol’ man fooling around. His member was not reattached! I think it happens rarely but doesn’t really make the news.

          • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 12:45 pm #

            is this true or not?

            https://www.unz.com/article/blackface-history-is-jewish-history/

          • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 6:37 pm #

            Unz is not only brilliant but that rarest of gems: a Jew who is actually on our side and not pretending to be. He knows far more about it than I do. If he believes it, I would tend to trust his opinion. I got my idea about Jolson from Daily Stormer. White Nationalism is among other things, a brain trust. We’re building a Group Mind and it is going to be awe inspiring.

        • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 2:04 pm #

          What lol??? You are so random!!!! How would we know if it is true or not? It is so long ago but there may be other sources of evidence too.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 2:05 pm #

            Post meant for malthuss ;-P.

          • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 4:15 pm #

            not so ran dumb. Just days ago Beans was at Janos about Al Jolson and Blackface.

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:36 pm #

            Gotchya. I wish people wouldn’t get so triggered by costumes. It’s like they don’t want any one to have fun or laugh anymore. Except if it comes at the expense of Whites. Humor is medicine you know.

  122. seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 11:14 am #

    He’s no Adolf Hitler.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6rQqMbPGV0

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 2:11 pm #

      I am mad at him right now so I did think it was funny. But let’s be honest with each other. Most of those politicians have fake looks, plastic surgery, spray tans, botox faces, etc. But it is true that some men just look better with big bald heads including the host of the video. I can’t imagine him with hair on his head.

      • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 11:36 pm #

        So Mitch McConnel looks like that after all that help? He should ask for a refund times 10.

        • SoftStarLight February 15, 2019 at 1:08 am #

          Well there is simply no excuse for Mitch McConnell. He is a turtle and he has fully accepted his identity.

  123. JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 11:49 am #

    Very interesting news on Amazon

    Amazon, worth $795 billion and making $11.2 billion in the US last year paid no taxes.

    0 taxes

    Unspecified tax credits and stock based compensation deductions, what ever that is.

    At the same time, their investments in US Federal debt went up to $11.7 billion.

    Hey, maybe Amazon can continue and eventually own the Federal government.

    Maybe the USPS will be run well then.

  124. seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 12:11 pm #

    The delinquencies on ICE powered cars are the first salvo in the paradigm shift occurring now, and that shift is from gasoline powered vehicles to electric powered vehicles. At some moment in the not so distant future people will realize that ICE (internal combustion engine) cars are going the way of the dodo and their value will reflect that i.e. ICE car’s value will go to zero, except for collectibles, Look at the 7th reason why ICE cars are dead man walking.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6rQqMbPGV0

    • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 5:22 pm #

      The single greatest factor in how long ICE remains will be the total cost of ownership. If, as you claim, ICE costs go DOWN, then ICE will be around for a long time.

      Right now you can buy a brand new ICE vehicle for $12,000 USD that will give you 40+ MPH. So it’s cheap to buy and cheap to drive.

      The cheapest electric? $30,000 USD. And I hope you don’t have range anxiety, because there are precious few charging stations, and a full recharge will take about ten hours.

      The difference between a $12k car and a $30k car is $18k. That buys a lot of gas. There’s no way any electric car is going to win the total cost of ownership calculation with that kind of handicap right out of the gate. Gas could be $10/gallon and ICE will still handily beat the electric.

      • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 7:42 pm #

        You think and reason that way because you’re a brain-washed American, believing the entire galaxy revolves around you and yours. The American market is saturated at 92% penetration. The Chinese market is around 16%. The American market for cars is 15 million a year. The Chinese is 30 million a year. Do the math. The Chinese government is mandating, through a combination of incentives and licenses to drive, that cars be electric. This is because China is the largest importer of oil in the world by far and they see it as a strategic imperative to get off the oil teet. Consequently, when you tack on $14,000 to obtain a license to purchase and operate an ICE car, the cost of ownership gets equalized in a Shanghai second. Add $1000 a year fuel saving even with gas at today’s prices, and electric leaves ICE in the dust. Kandi is introducing a $20,000 electric in US this year. With $7,500 tax incentive you’re at $12,500. China will bring electric cars to America because America, populated with oil idiots like you, is too stupid to bring it to itself. And don’t cry subsidy. Oil is the most subsidized industry in the world, and that’s not even counting the war and military expenditures required to keep it flowing.

        • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 8:25 pm #

          Sorry, sea-jizz, but your logic is idiotic. If, as you say, China stops consuming oil, that will leave a glut of oil on the world market, which will result in even cheaper gas prices. YOU do the math.

          As for China’s tariffs on ICE, they’ll be matched tit for tat on any EV they try to bring to USA markets. And since China enjoys a 4x trade surplus, they’ll lose 4x more than we will. Moreover, do you see Chinese cars dominating auto markets? The idea that their EVs will dominate is based on what? Your love of fortune cookies?

          You also ignore the range issues. EVs take 10 hours to recharge. No one is driving an EV interstate because the vehicles can’t make the journey. Oops!

          Bottom line: EVs CAN’T compete with ICE. Early adopters like yourself will pay a premium, just like all those morons who purchased a Prius. Where are Prius sales now, moron? The hybrid market peaked in 2013 and has been dropping ever since.

          • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 9:02 pm #

            You’re so uninformed it’s breathtaking. You’re like that guy who says vinyl is so much warmer than cd’s and then he makes you listen to his turntable, scratches and all. Or the guy who says film is so much better than digital. Wait, that’s who you are. That porn movie producer in “Boogie Nights,” the one who would not change to VHS cause he was a purist and would only produce porn using film. From now on you’re Dirk Diggler. Now listen Dirk, Nio has a 7 seater SUV that sells for $65,000, $40,000 if you don’t buy the battery pack, $30,000 after the government subsidy for an SUV that is better than a $150,000 Tesla Model X in China. Nio has battery swapping station where you swap your drained battery for a fully charged one in 3 minutes, faster than it takes to gas up, aaaalllllll the way across the country. And if you need a charge they have vans that come to you, all controlled from an app on your phone. So you see Dirk all the problems you see in your world have all been solved in the real world, several times over. EV’s will blow the ICE off the stage, like a tumbleweed in “The Big Lebowski.” Vaya don dios, Dirk Diggler.

          • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 10:29 pm #

            >>> Nio has battery swapping station where you swap your drained battery for a fully charged one in 3 minutes, faster than it takes to gas up, aaaalllllll the way across the country.

            LOL. Nio has no stations in the USA, moron. A company called Better Place tried this already. Guess where they are? That’s right: GONE. A company called Tesla also tried this. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? And guess where Tesla’s swapping stations are? That’s right: GONE.

            And the reason is pretty simple. Only a moron like yourself would swap a BRAND NEW battery on a freakishly expensive EV for some charged battery of dubious origin.

            >>> And if you need a charge they have vans that come to you

            Yeah like when you run out of gas and AAA comes to rescue you. Um… how about I just stick with gas and avoid the hours-long inconvenience and embarrassment?

            If this is your sales pitch, then I feel thoroughly confident

          • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 10:34 pm #

            …that ICE vehicles will continue to dominate until the EV range limitations have been resolved, and the costs approach those of ICE.

          • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 11:20 pm #

            Nio doesn’t sell cars in the US dumbass. Here is MIT’s take on the subject. I could place my confidence in Dirk “The Dumbass” Diggler or MIT. God it’s such a hard choice. What to do what to do. I guess I’ll have to go with MIT.
            https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612566/why-chinas-electric-car-industry-is-leaving-detroit-japan-and-germany-in-the-dust/

          • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 11:27 pm #

            Right, because MIT is well known for predicting future market conditions…

            “Trump would likely cause the stock market to crash and plunge the world into recession.” Simon Johnson, MIT economics professor, in The New York Times, November 2016.

            Kindly link to where MIT predicted the Great Recession. No link? Not surprised.

            Also, can you please keep your depraved movie preferences to yourself, in your mother’s basement, or whatever sewer you call home.

          • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 11:43 pm #

            Why would I do that Dirk? Diggler tradition insists porn be produced with integrity, like your ideas and specious arguments. You know, titty dancer logic on steroids. As I remember it you were the link whore, the link meister, insisting on a link to back up even one of my farts. Now you’re the link naysayer, insisting on perfect forecasting or throw the link out. Did MIT predict gravity? Show me the link? No Link. Fake News.Fake News. Go on now Tuumptard, change your story again.

  125. K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:03 pm #

    I just typed in Elliot Abrams in the search box of duckduckgo. This is what I got.

    Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American prostitute, lawyer political “scientist” and genocidal psychopath who has “served” in foreign policy positions for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.

    Clicking the link I go to the normal page.

    Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American diplomat and lawyer who has served in foreign policy positions for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.

    Somebody at duckduckgo is going to be in a bit of trouble unless they paid to put it there.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack

    • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:04 pm #

      Somebody at duckduckgo is going to be in a bit of trouble unless they paid to put it there.

      • K-Dog February 14, 2019 at 1:05 pm #

        Unless someone paid.

    • revilo February 14, 2019 at 1:51 pm #

      Elliott Abrams, PNAC signatory. All these war-mongering Jews are resurfacing, along with their Christian Zionist buttboys like Pompeo and Bolton. Sweet.

      Pompeo on the Rapture:
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3N2bOVd9_n8

  126. elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 1:35 pm #

    Well, Ladies and Germs;

    The Pig Gazette today reports that a lesbian woman, a member of the city of Baltimore’s LGBTQ study group, has been fired and excoriated for the abomination of sexual deviancy.

    No, that was incorrect, she was fired for referencing a transgender rape suspect as…”he”.

    Apparently the rapist, who decided to self-describe himself as a female, was TRANSFERRED to a female prison, where he raped two women (fallopians). In discussing the issue with the council, she referred to the rapist as “he” and thus sealed her own doom.

    No mention was made regarding the rapist (a prostatal, I expect)….

    http://www.pigazette.com/

    • Walter B February 14, 2019 at 3:09 pm #

      And this is why I have been calling for the removal of She, He, and IT from the English language, and replacing it with the term, SHIT. The country has gone to shit and so have the people so we may as well start calling it what it is, SHIT. It’s a win-win.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 14, 2019 at 6:39 pm #

      Yes, the rape doesn’t matter at all – not compared to the unspeakable crime of misgendering. And a Lesbian! They have no excuse and are expected to know better.

      Our Enemies are at each other throats – is it not sweet?

      • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 9:45 pm #

        what a messed up society.

      • Walter B February 15, 2019 at 9:19 am #

        What the old phrase, “Be careful what you ask for?”

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:05 pm #

      “Let he who is without uterus shove a trans vaginal ultrasound wand up his gluteus maximus” Fallopians 9:11

  127. volodya February 14, 2019 at 2:23 pm #

    So McCabe confirms that talks were held about removing Trump.

    Yawn. Tell us something we don’t know.

  128. FincaInTheMountains February 14, 2019 at 3:07 pm #

    Trump’s Strategic Offensive and the Big Bargain

    Senate Confirms William Barr as Attorney General

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/us/politics/william-barr-confirmed.html

    And the Democrats in the House of Representatives agreed to allocate one and a half billion dollars for the construction of the Great American Wall on the Mexican border.

    And this is again a Big Bargain, or rather a continuation of the Big Bargain concluded between the Bush clan and Trump on September 27 during a confirmation hearing of Justice of the US Supreme Court. I would have added to the Bargain the statement of the US Senate Committee about the absence of any evidence of cooperation with the Russians of the Trump election campaign.

    Senate voting on this wall deal is happening right now and if the vote matches most Republicans in the US Senate, it will be very difficult for Trump not to sign the budget and go for a new shutdown of federal government funding, despite the fact that instead of receiving 6 billion dollars he just got one and a half.

    Especially when you consider that Trump received the failure of the plan to split Orthodoxy and the Bush man at the head of the Justice Department, who is likely to force Mueller to confirm the conclusions of the Senate investigation.

    I still say shut that baby down now!

    • FincaInTheMountains February 14, 2019 at 3:20 pm #

      Regarding the financing of the Great American Wall on the Mexican border:

      They are going to put El Chapo’s money on it and either I do not understand anything at all in Trump physiognomy, or he triumphs about going to set Hillary’s personal money for the construction of the Wall, since El Chapo is her front man.

      Laughing My Ass Off!

  129. FincaInTheMountains February 14, 2019 at 3:40 pm #

    Shut that baby down now!

    And in 30 days, according to the law, dismiss all the employees of Justice and FBI and have them fill a new job applications with the new Attorney General of the United States William Barr.

    Country have had enough of their artistry for the last two and a half years!

    Mozerfukers!

    • malthuss February 14, 2019 at 4:16 pm #

      yes

  130. Pucker February 14, 2019 at 5:31 pm #

    Time is running out; Jesus is coming soon. If you are not a partner in this Jesus World Outreach, become one today and send in your financial help each month. Every month that you sponsor this mighty outreach, you will receive a GIANT Little Book filled with things the Lord has given me to bless people. It is my gift to all my monthly sponsors. The book of the month for February is Do You Speak Right Words?.

    Yours for souls,
    Ernest Angley

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • 100th Avatar February 14, 2019 at 6:03 pm #

      Hear! Hear!

      To god! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
      – H. Simpson

    • elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 7:35 pm #

      Puck,
      Does Jesus want the money we are sending to our Host?

  131. JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 6:59 pm #

    Well, well. AOC strikes again.

    New York just lost Amazon’ no. 2 site because of her Communistic mouth.

    Even Cuomo wants her head.

    The media’s little darling may have made a fatal mistake.

    Not a problem for her, next target, the airline industry.

    What is it going to take to rid ourselves of these hyper Liberal harpies?

    • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 8:42 pm #

      Not a problem for AOC. NY needs to be utterly demolished and rebuilt because it doesn’t adhere to green new deal standards! Depriving NY of jobs and growth is the first step to the workers’ paradise!

      • BackRowHeckler February 14, 2019 at 8:57 pm #

        That is funny, Ex.

        In fact that whole situation down there in LI City is a laugh riot.

        Brh

      • BackRowHeckler February 14, 2019 at 9:05 pm #

        Amazon said ‘F*k U’ to virtue signalling lefties in NYC!

        Amazon said, Why bother?

        Of course Amazon is a virtue signaller, too.

        Its corporate lefties vs political lefties.

        How sweet is that?

        Brh

    • BackRowHeckler February 14, 2019 at 9:12 pm #

      Keeo her around as long as possible, J Az.

      She’s the gift that keeps on giving. And this is only the beginning.

      Brh

      • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:16 pm #

        Hope you are right. I do not have enough faith in the American public, too much gimme.

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:22 pm #

      Amazon is famous for poor working conditions and either stagnates or depresses wages. So in terms of jobs and growth what is the true costs/benefits analysis? Amazon is creating a monopoly too. Maybe there should have been more negotiations and all but the reality is that companies are not interested in paying decent wages and keeping workers healthy. The chase for profits comes before those other concerns. And instead of trying to improve benefits to their employees they will replace humans with robots. I don’t agree with AOC but I am not really on Amazon’s side either. Is it really a loss at the end of the day?

      • BackRowHeckler February 14, 2019 at 9:32 pm #

        Yeah SSL, they both suck.

        • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:54 pm #

          And many Amazon workers go for public benefits to make up for the salaries they don’t get from Amazon. So that is sort of a back door subsidy too. Since the taxpayers are basically paying the way give the employees better wages and make them happy. I bet business would be even better. I know when I feel good I am more productive and get more accomplished in a day.

  132. elysianfield February 14, 2019 at 7:33 pm #

    Well!

    The BBC, this PM reports that Trump will sign the watered down border protection legislation offered by the Dems…and then DECLARE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY on the border!

    “Bofe, Coach…”

    Thank you sweet Jesus!

    • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:13 pm #

      Trump just showed more cojones facing off the Leftist BS artists than any of his supposed conservative predecessors which is why the country is in the position it is in now.

      Exscotticus, I hope you were kidding?

    • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 9:18 pm #

      He’s been chewing too much covfefe.

      • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:39 pm #

        And I assume Madame Pelosi is still chewing on her tongue?

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:37 pm #

      Yeah well I’ll believe it when I see it. The bill ensures illegal immigration skyrockets, increases guest worker visas, aids MS-13 and child rapists and human traffickers. Meanwhile lawsuits will immediately bring wall construction to a standstill because judges have more power than the President and his order will be in the courts. Trump lost and I feel like he may have never meant what he said. I hope ya’ll are right and I am wrong but I am tired of words. The wall should have been numero uno on inaugaration day but here we are.

  133. 40 million deportations.

    How will America do it? One family at a time… since people are so much happier when whole families are handled.

    Interceptions will take place at worksites, offices, single-family homes, airports, and on the public byways.

    Assets will be placed under federal seizure, and deportees assigned to central removal hubs. The deportees will be kept in their own clothes for an expedited 48-hour removal.

    If the full contingent of law enforcement officers, federal, state, county and municipality are used, full removal could be accomplished, perhaps within one year.

    But game theory indicates that by the time you’ve shown that you have deported 10%, the remaining 90% will likely being to self-deport, further accelerating the timeline.

    So you only really need to deport 4 million. Then, people will realize that self-deportation is a lot more lucrative.

    Arriving in their home countries, they will be shuttled to the US embassy under diplomatic immunity. Once inside, they will be read the Trump act, given notice, and officially notarized as immigration violators.

    Then, they will be formally kicked out the front door, back into their country of origin.

    Welcome to the National Emergency, gentlemen. A shame we haven’t reached this point sooner!

    • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:25 pm #

      This is consequence of PTBs that have encouraged the disregard for our laws, and are much, much, much ,much bigger than these little guys that are going to bear the brunt of this action.

      These big guys are already trying to figure out the next step to block the blockade of the border, which you can bet will involve the ninth court of appeals.

      This is a war, folks.

      Remember how disgusted we were when we found out how the Mafia bought off and owned whole city governments and states.

      Well, these Big Boys own the Deep State and the remnants of the Mafia.

      • Well, to the point that the little guys will bear the brunt, I actually advocate for a top-down policy.

        The 4 million, 10% initial targets are going to be the petty bourgeoisie, but also, multi-millionaires, executives, persons with significant assets.

        Basically the top 10%- Federal impound is going to be up to the neck in BMW Z-series, Mercedes-Benz, and Cadillacs.

        What we are going to target are a lot of engineers, doctors, lawyers, business owners, of course, the idle rich- their private planes, their condominiums, their fur collections, etc.

        So don’t worry about “The Little Guy”.

        I propose that this gentle process of moving persons of some means will engender a moniker for the removal force- they’ll be called “The Guestapo”

        Yes, more concierge than chattel, they can enjoy some benefits of being removed by the wealthiest nation on Earth. Spam(tm) in a can, bottled water- the works. Even receipts for everything.

    • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:42 pm #

      Wow Carlos, the more you talk like this I feel like I am slowly gravitating toward an NY state of mind ;-).

  134. JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:39 pm #

    Speaking of New York,

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2gOU94dgj8

    • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 9:45 pm #

      Sorry, the YouTube link is not working.

      It was a report on Muslim Patrols starting up in New York City in Muslim areas trying to enforce sharia laws. They drive in patrol cars that look like NYPD cars and harass residents for “improper dress and behavior. The report noted that the same thing is happening in European cities.

      • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 9:57 pm #

        Ah yes, the No-Go zones. But you see they really don’t exist. You just need to exorcise your inner islamophobic demons lol.

        • JohnAZ February 14, 2019 at 10:05 pm #

          Then who issued the report. Do these patrols really exist? Here and Europe?

          • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:27 pm #

            I was being sarcastic, they definitely do exist and are expanding day by day. Look up Islamburg, NY.

          • Exscotticus February 14, 2019 at 11:09 pm #

            >>> They drive in patrol cars that look like NYPD cars

            What vehicle do they use to do the sharia patrols in Islamburg, NY? A horse and buggy? A tractor? I think the Amish have more technology.

            I heard that when you’re in Islamburg, NY, Hidden Meadow is the place to go for a little stone-aged ooh la la…

          • SoftStarLight February 15, 2019 at 12:46 am #

            LOL – very hidden indeed. In fact, in complete darkness while fully clothed. Try to work out those details.

      • In addition to the Muslim patrol, the SJWNYT also reports that other religious groups have and are doing their own security patrols in marked cars. Frankly, its creepy, no doubt about it.

        Remember the “Guardian Angels”?

        That took balls. On foot, teams of unarmed (maybe some brass knuckles), a red leather jacket and matching beret. Ready to chase any generic bad guy.

        • SoftStarLight February 14, 2019 at 10:28 pm #

          And what is your position on the matter?

        • seawolf77 February 14, 2019 at 10:40 pm #

          They had their 15 minutes.

          • SoftStarLight February 15, 2019 at 12:54 am #

            They are still around though and they don’t seem to have a religious affiliation.

  135. Lisa February 17, 2019 at 5:36 pm #

    I don’t know, if anyone noticed: We pay FICA on the gross amount of the paycheck, it means we already pay taxes on the Social Security. But then up to 85% of Social Security payments is taxable again, when we get to retirement. It is a double take

    And yes, here in NYC rent for a decent (not luxury) apartment is higher than average retirement check

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • ZrCrypDiK February 21, 2019 at 8:20 pm #

      Sux that ~$120k cap, huh?!… heh – Cra-Z lil’ ship of fools!!!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism's Not The Answer – ProTradingResearch - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  2. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism’s Not The Answer | peoples trust toronto - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  3. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism’s Not The Answer – iftttwall - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  4. "We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America" But Kunstler Warns, Socialism's Not The Answer | ValuBit - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  5. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism’s Not The Answer | Real Patriot News - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  6. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism’s Not The Answer – TCNN: The Constitutional News Network - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  7. "We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America" But Kunstler Warns, Socialism's Not The Answer - open mind news - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  8. "We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America" But Kunstler Warns, Socialism's Not The Answer - NewsBanc - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  9. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism’s Not The Answer – Wall Street Karma - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  10. “We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America” But Kunstler Warns, Socialism’s Not The Answer – TradingCheatSheet - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  11. "We Have A New Kind Of Mass Squalor In America" But Kunstler Warns, Socialism's Not The Answer - Truthbaron - February 11, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  12. James Howard Kunstler: You can't have socialism if you don't have production | Red, Green, and Blue - February 11, 2019

    […] By James Howard Kunstler […]

  13. And a pony! | peakfuture - February 12, 2019

    […] proposals.  Of course, the pushback was immediate, from many quarters.   JHK had a sober critique of socialism that was put up yesterday that brought up the energy/entropy issue, and that WW2 style programs won’t be saving the […]

  14. The Industrial Age Is Ending, Low-Tech Neo-Feudalism Will Replace It – No Fossil Fuels, No ‘Green’ Energy – Emma Olive - February 18, 2019

    […] Source: Kunstler.com […]

  15. Les Futurs se trompent | Latier Ce Voix - March 1, 2019

    […] Par James Howard Kunstler – Le 11 février 2019 – Source kunstler.com […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  16. The Political Suicide of the New Green Deal : Cold Climate Change - March 6, 2019

    […] economic and social shortcomings, and all within a decade of setting the plan in motion. James Howard Kunstler has some poignant things to day about the Democratic party and the entire drift of the left. “The […]

  17. Ces français si ignares ! | saintongeais - March 7, 2019

    […] que la majeure partie de cette richesse a déjà disparu. )…James Howard Kunstler -– Source kunstler.com […]