JHK’s Three-Act Play
Clusterfuck Nation
Now appearing Mondays and Fridays
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page!
What America might want to know right now is: how come Hillary Clinton doesn’t have any legal problems? Why aren’t DOJ investigators examining the financial records of the Clinton Foundation? You would think somebody would want to find out how over $120 million of Russian “charitable donations” ended up on its ledgers around the time that Secretary of State HRC approved the Uranium One deal — compared to which, Bill Clinton’s $500,000 payment from a Russian bank for giving a speech around the same time just looks like walking-around money.
This is not to mention (well, I will) the flow of donations from Saudi Arabia pending approval of a major arms deal by HRC. Or of myriad other donations from foreign nationals tendered simply for face-time with the Secretary. Has any other cabinet officer in US history run a money-gathering org while serving? I don’t think so. Maybe the arrant selling of influence right out-front strains the credulity of government auditors. And while we’re at this, I would like to know how then-FBI director Robert Mueller and President Obama might have been informed about these activities. Or not?
Mr. Mueller also needs to answer about his relationship with former FBI director James Comey — he was apparently Mr. Comey’s mentor — while Mr. Comey needs to answer for his peculiar and probably lawless behavior in dismissing the investigation around HRC’s private email server — that was not his decision to make — and the notorious meeting at the Phoenix airport of former president Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch around the same time the email investigation under Mr. Comey came to a head.
Now comes the news from Donna Brazille, on-again-off-again Democrat Party chair, that the primary elections were elaborately rigged by HRC functionaries to buy control of her nomination. Let’s not even go into the bidding for the Christopher Steele “dossier” alleging kinky sexual romps in Moscow by Donald Trump, or the activities in Ukraine of Tony Podesta’s DC lobbying company — that’s Tony, brother of John Podesta, Clinton campaign chief, whose emails remain a truffle cache for the rooting dogs of the DOJ, if they were actually on-the-task.
I write this as a still-registered Democrat myself — though I consider myself their enemy now, yet hardly a Trump partisan. Are there any like me out there who would like to see both parties tossed onto the garbage barge of history? Of course, to say that also means throwing out a cargo of terrible ideas and beliefs, not just two clown cars of personalities. Identity politics, zero interest rate policy, American Exceptionalism, endless debt, nation-building in foreign lands, FASB-157, sanctuary cities, Title IX coercion, racketeering in health care and higher ed, market interventions, ambiguous borders… is just some of the cargo that needs to be dumped overboard with both parties.
Watergate begins to look as quaint and simple as a game of Chutes and Ladders compared to RussiaGate. Not only are both parties implicated one way or another in multiple nefarious schemes, plots, and intrigues, but the Department of Justice and its subsidiary, the FBI, look culpable in a range of cover-ups and mis-directions. If the DOJ becomes disabled, how does any of this get resolved?
The whole extravaganza is heading toward a constitutional crisis that might clean out the system like a Death Wish coffee enema. Sentiment may arise for Mr. Mueller to step aside, if President Trump doesn’t make the rash decision to simply fire him. The latter would certainly foment a constitutional crisis that could include an effort to run Trump over with the 25th amendment. In the event, we’ll be in a new kind of civil war.
New Paintings by JHK 2016 — 2017
Great Fall Reading… JHK’s new book!
“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
Other Books by JHK
| The World Made By Hand Series: | |
Book 1: |
Book 2: |
   |
|
Book 3: |
Book 4: |
|
|
 |
 |
  |
|
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
Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books
|
Order now! Jim’s other new book
|
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
Good column; I so prefer the politics to the predictions. You aren’t the only one who would like to see a new party. Where was Bloomberg when he had a chance? What is he thinking now?
All that said, I’m not expecting any revolution. Just a better party.
Why not a revolution? They can be messy ala the guillotine. But they eventually achieve a resolution. The French one resulted in the triumph of republican government and the downfall of monarchy. The bloody Russian one has not been as salutary yet, but its downfall is still early.
Most of us would prefer an orderly, peaceful transition. I know I would. And there’s no guarantee that things will be better after the revolution.
But there are few candidates I might nominate for the guillotine.
All you need to realize is it is NOT the dems vs the repubs, its the oligarchs vs the rest of us. Trump is NO different than HRC.
I wouldn’t say no different, but you have a point.
But there are few candidates I might nominate for the guillotine. – Graycenphil
==============
Gray, I am confused, did you intend to say ‘a few’ or just ‘few.’ Just one single-letter word can change the meaning entirely.
I meant a few, though that might be an understatement. Thanks for catching it. If there is a way of editing posts on here, I’m not aware of it.
The scale of revolution necessary probably can’t be accomplished without bloodshed. A peaceful transition is unlikely.
People who are still talking about HRC will not be participating in any revolution. HRC is irrelevant and will never hold a high government office again.
A true revolutionary is a man of passion. Being stuck in the now dead past muttering about HRC and Russia when we have a nimrod at the helm who can actuality sign documents with legal weight makes no damn sense. Muttering about HRC serves no purpose and distracts from authentic issues.
All of you who are wasting time on this bitch have lost your damn minds. That also means you JHK. Of all people you should never be running out of real problems to discuss, but writing about Hilary is a wank. She is now about as important as Harvey Weinstein’s dick, which is not at all.
Constitution Crisis? Exactly what is that supposed to mean. I suspect that is a catchphrase which signifies nothing. What legal principle is being violated when people have relationships and concentrate on trivia? None that I can think of.
Irrelevant? She knows where the bodies are buried. She’ll sing to save herself.
Your bitterness is palpable. All your gods have failed – including Madiba.
OH hell no Hillary and Obama need to be tried for all their collective crimes and while we are at it the previous several Presidents as well.
While we are at it lets start kicking rocks over in Congress and the Senate as well.
Meanwhile power shysters like Soros keep greasing the skids and causing mayhem everywhere they go.
I love my country and believe in the politcal process but at this point we can’t continue to pretend that there is equal justie for all.
If any of us had done half of what Hillary has done or even been accused of we would be rotting in jail right now.
There is an apocryphal story about a meeting of Cho En Lai and Henry Kissinger during the days of Nixons ping pong diplomacy. Kissinger asked, “What do you think about the French Revolution–Did it have a good outcome?””
Cho replied, “Its too soon to tell.”
Likely that the Chinese and Russians are a LOT more skillful at political manipulations and taking advantage of the turmoils of others. I hope we can avoid civil war but it feels like the risk is high…
Yeah that’s it we need a better party, that’s all. Entertainment to the rescue once again, great idea. Perhaps we can convince the Democrats and the Republicans to join together into one big happy party so that there will no longer be contention between them, only harmony and happy, happy. Yes, that’s is the solution to our problems a fricken party! And it would be NEW and NEW is always better isn’t it? Damn, I wish I would have thought of that. How could I be so stupid?
Bloomberg? Really?
Bloomberg, sure. Better party, definitely.
Even Hitler had friends, all he had to do was pay them. Sellouts come at every level and can be had cheaply sometime as well.
If any politician isn’t a sellout, I’d say it would be Bloomberg. It’s just too bad he chose not to run. Perhaps he thought he could just buy Clinton if he needed to.
The best reality is the one you create in your own head.
Twitter deactivated Trumps account.
The new thought police at work.
“Twitter deactivated Trumps account.
The new thought police at work.”
Could you try not to spread fake news, please? ‘Twitter’ categorically did not deactivate Trump’s account. A rogue joker deactivated it for a total of 11 minutes, on his last day at work. An employee of Twitter having a laugh (and spreading joy around the world for a brief moment) is not ‘Twitter’. Please stop it.
‘The new thought police’ – seriously! This is how nonsense spreads around the internet like a virus because people don’t look into what actually happened. Or they know what actually happened but they choose to spread fake news anyway, to further their own agenda among willing listeners. Echo chamber nonsense, basically.
Screw you. ‘An employee of Twitter’ is Twitter, imo.
12 minutes or 12 hours, who cares?
Not you, clearly, when living in your own reality suits you better than the facts.
The important thing to take from all this Twitter business is that if this had happened to Barry, it would have been a racist rogue Twitter employee.
Thought Police……sooo 1984.
But they left Jenna Abrams up and she was a creation of the Russian troll factory.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jenna-abrams-russias-clown-troll-princess-duped-the-mainstream-media-and-the-world
Couldn’t Twitter be deactivated? Plus Farcebook and Egogram?
Oh please, oh please, oh please…
Rob has a sense of humor. Rob, study ‘transhumanism’
Anything and everything in Cyberspace can be deactivated just like the electrical “grid” and anyone that says otherwise is simply an idiot. Any of us that lived through Sandy will recall that one day the power just goes off and everything gets dark. Nobody comes by your house and tells you what is going on, no mailman shows up with instructions on how to get by, no happy government buffoon walks up your driveway to lead you to happy, happy. It just goes out. It happened in the Keys, in Houston, and is still in effect in Puerto Rico. It can be natural or man made and why there are idiots out here that have to habitually assert the infallibility of the system is beyond me. I guess mind numbing fear can make a human being believe all sorts of bullshit. Landru guide us.
Thanks. A cashless world will be horrible.
And it is coming doubt it not…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUByhFfxvao
Just got a little reminder of that here in southern New Hampshire. The storm nicknamed “Franken – Phillippe” hit us with 60 mph wind gusts and knocked out power for a couple of days.
Got to do some reading and play acoustic guitar.
Yes, we do have balckouts. We’ve had them before, and no matter what we do, we’ll hve them again. This is just something we need to prepare for, and deal with.
Is anyone asserting the infallibility of the system? Most of what I see is people concerned about the vulnerabilities, and the need to reinforce it. As we should, and will.
I thought this would be a good time to look up that famous Watergate question “Where were the lawyers?” I couldn’t remember who asked it so I went to google. Stanley Sporkin. But it took me awhile to find the answer. I learned that this question comes up every time there is a scandal. As of mid-morning today, the search yields one hundred and thirty-five million hits.
The greatest scandal of all is that we allow the lawyers to control the law. This puts them above the law. That is the root of our problems.
Q: What do you call 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start.
NO WE CALL THAT pollution!
Add a second layer of 1,000 priests and minsters on top of the lawyers. We’d all start feeling so much better that we’d makes the Mayans and Aztecs look like pikers when it comes to human sacrifice.
Not so great a scandal as letting the ‘too big to fail’ bankers control the money-supply. Are you aware, Windward, that the federal reserve is a privately owned (by the big banks) institution whose only government oversight is the (ceremonial only) ability of the president to name its chairman? But you definitely have a point there.
I just looked up FASB 157. It’s apparently an accounting rule that has to do with assigning fair value to assets, Could you please, Jim, give us an explanation of how this rule affects the swamp-o-rama?
On another subject, today marks 100 years since the death in World War I of Merle Hay, from Glidden, Iowa. Merle Hay was one of the first three Americans killed in that war, all on November 3, 1917.
The lack of interest in the history of the Great War in the US is amazing.
Here in Des Moines a highway and shopping mall are named for Merle Hay.
FASB-157 — a rule of procedure in generally accepted accounting practices that formerly required banks to value the “assets” on their balance sheet on a mark-to-market basis — i.e. to market reality — revised in 2010 to allow banks to assign any value they felt like to the ‘assets” they held (mark-to-fantasy). A lot of these assets were securities like Collateralized Debt Obligations — stuffed with nonperforming mortgages — that were put together as deliberate frauds. They became worthless or close to. But they remain on the bank books as representing value.
And they will remain on the books for they cannot be sold at current value because of the fractional reserve system that is stretched thinner than the Thin Red Line. We are seeing more and more cases where the home owning entities are not even trying to sell vacant houses because selling at half price would cause stress test nightmares if they did. Unless another boom comes around and value is pumped back into these value short properties this problem may never be solved. The city of Plainfield New Jersey has an entire neighborhood of foreclosed homes that it has been filling with police families for free to keep the properties from going crack house.
JHK–Thanks for the explanation of FASB-157.
A great post today. I’m going to print that list of terrible ideas and beliefs and use them as talking points with friends.
That list could be the outline for the platform of a new party: a party that might, at long last, bring about hope and change.
New “party” means a new or a different player to assume its role within a “system” that is run by legalized corruption. It is fallacy to believe that you can put fresh meat into a diseased meat grinder and not get more diseased hamburger. The real owners of the system need to be removed from ownership which is completely impossible because they have the power, the money, the weapons of mass destruction to keep themselves in the driver’s seal until the corrupt system crashes and burns. Of course it could fumble along disfunctionally forever and there will always be those who love it, praise it and will sit on their lazy asses and do nothing to fight it. Its all good, its all ok.
I think the idea, and maybe you’d consider it idealism Walter, is that a new party or parties could go into Congress and change some of the laws that have made the flow of money into politician’s hands not only easier but fundamental to the job – a good first step to sterilizing the meat grinder. I don’t remember the name of the law but was in regard to limitless donations to PACS and SuperPACS, it was enacted maybe 10 years ago. The Patriot Act has to go as well which is politically impossible at the moment, it was never marketed or sold as an indefinite solution and has ballooned the federal govt. and M-I-C to unknown porportions.
There are some no-brainer solutions to start solving our problems at the federal level, you just need new people in there who aren’t corrupted in some way by special interests/lobbyists to make it happen. We can try new parties – which is the only remaining bloodless way to enact change in the system, to “cleanse the meat grinder”.
Or we say screw it and put the second amendment to work and start removing the diseased meat grinder parts by force and figure out later on how to reassemble a 235-year old hand-me-down meat grinder, one that worked pretty good until about 20-25 years ago. Some alterations were made to the meat grinder that have to be undone, no matter which path we choose.
Well bhnj13, out of a lack of being able to do anything else to fight the diseased system, I fought my way onto my Township’s governing body two years ago. Working within the political system even at this low level quickly proves to those of us who struggle for change, that besides being able to say that I am actively working on the problem, it offers us proof that it is done, dead, toast, helpless, trust me. I have even entered the Golden Hall in Trenton and called them out for the sellouts that they are and they don’t even bother to laugh. They just move on to the next scam. Why is it totally hopeless you might ask? Simple, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT! The people do not care, just like this place here where the happy, happies droll on about how great it all is will and become even better once the next technology is rammed up our collective butts. Don’t worry, be happy, do nothing is the American excuse for inaction. Nope, nothing is going to change I would stake my very life on it and actually may be doing exactly that. But I would rather die alone trying than have to listen to some grinning idiot drolling on about how much brighter tomorrow will be just because they want it to be.
People have been complaining forever about how bad things have gotten, and how it’s not like it used to be, and how hopeless the future looks. And they’ve always been wrong.
I have no doubt the future will be better. Not, as you say, “just because they want it to be”. It will be better because we, and especially younger people, will be working hard to make it so.
There are an awful lot of dire predictions on this site about the end of the world as we know it. Even the predictions about hurricanes Harvey and Irma were way off. It’s always easy to see the potential downside; much harder to see the good.
So share with us all happy, happy one, what exactly are you actively doing to help this Brave New World come about? What efforts are you involved in that are fixing systems, solving problems and making tomorrow a better day than today? Please share.
As Isaid, it’s mostly folks younger than me. But I certainly do all that I still can. First and foremost, I have raised an honest, well educated, decent, hard working child. She’ll be going off to college soon, and I’ll be paying for it. I’m not sure anything is more important than the kid. I could leave it at that, and it would be more than enough, but you probably wouldn’t be satisfied.
I’m hesitant to sing my own praises, but since you asked, I’ll give you a few more. I have had a solid and respectable career, I have invested wisely and thoughfully, and often in my community, and am enjoying the results of that. As are some of the beneficiaries and employees of my investments.
I’ve been generous with those who need help, here, in the nation and around the world too. Financially, as well as with time and sweat. We are prepared for almost anything, and with enough to share for those around us.
I vote regularly, and for good candidates, though. I wish there were more and I wish they won more often. Just be patient. I’m very satisfied with the politicians in my small town. We have no debt.
And one more, I am always happy to point out errors, misconceptions, misleading statements and bad predictions in online blogs.
If you need more, ask, but I’m blushing already.
Thank you for not only answering my question but for painting for me the portrait of why you write as you do. If you are being honest then once again my abilities of perception still amaze even me. You only vote for the “good” candidates, what crap. You make it very difficult for me to think and feel they way I am commanded to do so. Perhaps you are a test. Yes I shall have to consider this to be the case and find a way to not feel so foul when I read your Pied Piper’s tune. .
Sorry Walter B, but that makes no sense to me. Perhaps I’m just not that smart, or maybe you have no good response. I suspect it is the latter. If it isn’t please explain what you are trying to say, what “portrait I have painted” and why you feel so foul. And what on earth does “feel the way I am commanded to do so” mean.
If you choose not to respond, I will certainly understand that.
I’ve got a deal for you, how about I stop reading and responding to what you post and you do the same for me. I understand that after a long career as an engineer being called in to find problems and then design and implement solutions I am tainted and have little patience for you pie in the sky, everything is wonderful and getting better types. The lines of crap that you guys peddle to the masses puts them to sleep about the fact that there are problems ahead that will need to be solved. Your shilling makes it far more difficult for those of us tasked with solving these problems to get the job done. Frankly I do not understand why you would come to a blog such as this where the host does his best to raise the problem issues for consideration, rather than ignore them. You and I need to be separated by space and time, one way or another.
I never asked you to respond to my posts; you are free to ignore them, and if your responses are going to be personal, I would appreciate that you do ignore them.
However, when you post nonsense or misleading information, or when you make ridiculous predictions about the dismal future, I will continue to correct them.
And I am still curious about the meaning of your prveious post, all of it, but particularly the “think and feel the way I am commanded to do so” part. Have I stumbled onto some bizarre cult that you are a member of?
As I have pointed out before, I never said everything is wonderful. I suspect by now you realize that, but it fits your narrative better to ignore it. Or is that part of the cult?
If anybody else is still paying attention, and has any idea what Walter is talking about, please feel free to speak up.
Graycenphil.
What an insanely arrogant, useless, putrefactive, piece of trash you truly are.
You’re wrong, too.
Were you also “commanded to say that”?
Now Cancel, you are of course entitled to your opinion. Walter is also entitled to his opinion (though if he is being commanded an opinion, it’s a bit less clear). But neither of you is entitled to your facts. And the fact is, the long emergency is just a novel. And a good one. But it’s not happening. The dollar isn’t going away, life in the US isn’t about to go back to the dark ages, hurricane Harvey isn’t going to destroy Houston or bankrupt the nation. Life in the future will be a lot like life today, only a little better. Whether you like it or not.
Great post Jim, per usual. Every dysfunctional system you mention, political, social, financial, no matter how they have evolved, mutated and metastasized, all have the same root, the same common denominator. They are all predatory. Yes. Toss both parties onto the garbage barge. Enter a party that has more than predation at heart.
Here here. Time for millenials to put the phones down and step up to the plate.
Graycenphil, I have raised two honest, decent, well educated, hard working children. The oldest I helped through college, though she used her own resources also. The youngest is working towards a doctorate with very little help from me as I simply can’t afford it and I fear he will eventually have a large debt to repay. Like you, I had a solid and respectable career but one in a blue collar field that didn’t make me exorbitantly wealthy. I am not making excuses. I enjoyed the work that I did for about 37 years. It was a tough job with a lot of comraderie. I have never had a lot of money to give to charitable causes, but have donated considerable time and energy. Time is money as they say. I say its much more valuable than money. I too, have voted regularly, at least for the last few years. Almost always for the lesser of two evils. Whether they were good candidates or not has a lot to do with personal opinion, don’t you think? I sincerely doubt you are blushing. Though its obvious your heart is bleeding. You are too goddamned arrogant to blush.
Washington D.C. is not a “swamp” as the Prez and other politicos and prognosticators would like you to believe.
The Capital, its persons, games played there, and local environs, is much more like the legendary Love Canal in upper N.Y. state. The Hooker Chemical Company’s legacy environmental catastrophe that was leaking toxic waste, corrosives, and carcinogens; where nice suburban housing was built – the peoples’ housing.
The same is now happening in and at the federal government: the home of the American people’ political union, leaking toxic sludges, corrosives, poisons and carcinogens – all in plain sight. It was only covered with a top layer of manure that has been thankfully bulldozed away, ironically, by the Tweeter-In-Chief himself.
Noting all that, nothing will come of it as the drumbeats of war pick up the tempo. Trump is going to Asia as I write and will be certain to make a gaffe regarding The Pudge of Pyongyang, that might even set off “The Big One.”
I’m with you on paragraph 5, JHK, though I used to be a republican…also still registered but only for the past opportunities to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Now there’s something you missed: end the federal reserve!
DC is just a cesspool of graft and grifters; what are the chances of the decent things getting done?
I too remain a registered Democrat, but I hold the party in utter contempt following events of 2016, starting with my experience at the Iowa Caucuses. In my precinct caucus, it appeared that Bernie was cheated out of votes. There is no way to know for sure, because vote totals were never announced. Such a lack of competency and lack of transparency should not be rewarded.
You’re probably right that he was cheated. In this case, of course, the Democrats weren’t rewarded.
And Bernie Sanders was actually up in Canada this past week surveying the Canadian health system as opposed to throwing spurious, ignorant shade from overloaded golf carts.
The Brits have a good one for this, “Don’t confuse with the facts, my mind is made up.”
Will throw another one Jim’s way to go with the Swamp metaphor. Truth is first casualty in the fog of war; integrity is first casualty in swamp fog of politics.
“Don’t confuse me with the facts…”
There’s no probably about it; Donna Brazile has come right out and confirmed it. The Clinton campaign got control over the Democratic Party’s fundraising, and used it to promote their candidate at the expense of both her rival and the party in general.
Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC
When I was asked to run the Democratic Party after the Russians hacked our emails, I stumbled onto a shocking truth about the Clinton campaign.
— By DONNA BRAZILE | November 02, 2017
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774
“Before I called Bernie Sanders, I lit a candle in my living room and put on some gospel music. I wanted to center myself for what I knew would be an emotional phone call.
“I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.
“So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations. [emphasis added]
“Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was. How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks.
“By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.”
—
Read the whole thing.
Confirming what absolutely everyone, except Bernie apparently, knew already. If he was that easily suckered he would have made a lousy Prez anyway. It takes a crook to defeat a bunch of crooks. Bernie would have got steamrollered either way, it’s just that Clinton got to him first.
Yes, remember the look of impotence and shame as the BLM Big Mouth Mamas took away his mic. He was like a little boy. Or the look of self loathing on his face as his idiot wife cast a vote for Hillary. This is a guy who can’t stand up to women, or perhaps anybody.
Once again, I have to agree with you. Bernie’s “coalition of one” would have been politically neutered before it ever got started. As it will be again in 2020 if he lives that long and they’re stupid enough to run him again.
@Ol’ Scratch: Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?
Thanks in no small part to Bernie’s 2016 challenge to the party establishment, the corruption of the Democratic Party has now been laid bare for all to see. The critics really have the goods this time: there’s simply no factual way to dismiss a charge made by none other than the DNC’s own former national chair. The Clintonites’ next move will be to distract and befuddle, but their usual bag of tricks amounts to crying “Bernie Bros! Racism! Sexism, ooh!” and, rather obviously, Donna Brazile is immune to all that nonsense. It’s a uite fun to see, really.
No doubt the Clinton camp is cooking up some strategy or other, but the boulder has been shifted another inch. Stop thinking in terms of one magic candidate or one magic election cycle that will fix everything; that’s the kind of thinking that gifted the world with President Trump. Cleaning up U.S. politics is a long-term project, and this represents progress — or should I say, change you can actually believe in?
Thanks for the link. It was a good read.
It confirms what was visually obvious at the time of the Iowa caucus. Where were the “big names”? Bernie was a protest candidate, O’Malley was unknown outside Maryland.
I never bought Biden’s story about his son’s death being too much for him to focus on a campaign. When I’ve had major losses I threw myself into my work to help me get back to normal (whatever that is).
Surely some other senator or congress person or governor wanted the oval office.
I meant probably cheated in the Iowa caucus.
Sounds like collusion to me
You mean the highly-unlikely streak of wins HRC had at coin flipping?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/coin-toss-decides-clinton-sanders-tie-iowa-precinct-article-1.2517022
Thoroughly corrupt. I look forward to the time when Donald Trump is clearly the most corrupt and unelectable person running for office.
Great piece.
Clearly, what is implicit with the condonation of HRC and the DNC is the notion that they are serving the deep state and its controlling interests, namely arms manufacturers, and the attendant bureaucrats tasked with maintaining the status quo AKA American Exceptionalism.
Does anyone believe that Manafort would be indicted if he had instead worked for HRC or Jeb! (Yes, Jeb! With an exclamation)?
Of course not as both party icons/totems are deep state servants and defenders of the deep rooted infection known as the status quo.
Also obvious, in order to maintain a perception of impartiality, fairness, and the blindness of justice, Mueller will collect heads from all sides. Knowing that, the most expendable actors at risk are cutting bait, hence Brazile’s undignified botched seppuku (she spared herself of course).
A deeply protected corrupt and hijacked operation, ostensibly known as our political system, has been flayed open for all to see.
Yet it is ignored.
And is why we deserve the “leaders” and the deteriorated country they rule.
No actually it’s not ignored it is EXACTLY what Trump has been talking about!
Many talk about the deep state and the cover ups by main stream media.
Alex Jones, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Armstron and Getty have been talking about it for years and even pointing out huge flaws in the “Conservative movement”.
The FACT is Dems are far better at the propaganda game and the deflection game then the Repubs using a complacent media to cover up all their flaws and point out real and imagined flaws of the “otherside” of the aisle. or scream racism and bigotry to the point it no longer has any affect on anyone that is not simpleminded.
Lest we forget the new and improved con of “WHITE PRIVILEGE” the Dems are all slight of hand and divisive games!
The US has been interferring in foreign elections for decades and in some cases worked to overthrow foreign leaders elected by their own citizens (e.g. Iran 1953). What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I was more concerned about Sheldon Adelson spending over $100 million of his own money trying to buy the presidency and other offices in 2012 than I am about Rusian meddling in the 2016 presidential race. What did Adelson hope to get for his money? Is he registereed as a foreign agent for Israel? What about AIPAC? Adelson is probably its richest member. AIPAC members (at least the very wealthy ones) are known to be very generous campaign contributors and have a reputation for financing primary challengers to run against politicians who don’t toe the AIPAC line.
The unfortunate reality is that our poitical system has been corrupted by big money for years and the Citizens United Decision in 2010 has only made matters worse. Those TV commercials before electoins with the announcer telling you to call your Congressman and tell him you oppose X or support Y are a stain on our democracy.
what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. My sentiments exactly.
Also here is a question for the people here: are healthcare worker salaries artificially high BECAUSE of the healthcare racket?
I ask this as someone considering going to school for medical stuff simply because of the insanely high salaries.
Not all healthcare salaries are high, but many are. Pick your position carefully. The racket may be part of the reason, but there are lots of good, legitimate reasons too. Many jobs require significant training and education, they are important and complex jobs, they are hopefully attracting intelligent people with integrity and sick people are very willing to pay for help.
If it is a field you would enjoy working in, by all means do so. And do it well.
As a person that has been in the health care field for 30 plus years I can tell you that most of the salaries aren’t “artificially set high” there is a fair amount of education and if you’re licensed in your specialty there are always CEU’s and if the hospital or clinic you work in isn’t managed well there is a high rate of burn-out whether you’re a MD, nurse, or aid.
Yes. They are predators. How does the oath go, first do no harm? As doctors ignore the oath, then come the scavengers.
“Medical stuff” is a pretty broad category. The big money is in health care administration, and even there mostly at the executive levels, just like everywhere else in Corporate America. Actual health care providers, from doctors on down don’t make all that much anymore, and they work long hours and damn hard to get it. All the wealth is being skimmed off at the executive levels before it ever gets to them. That said, doctors have largely off-loaded all their actual work onto Nurse-Practioners, Nurses, and now to Nurses Aides and even Orderlies these days, so if trends continue we’ll all likely be reduced to paying to use touchscreens and do everything ourselves like every other consumer industry out there.
Bottom line: if your pay is referred to as “salary,” you’re almost certainly not making much, although you’re still a damn sight better off than someone earning “wages” (of sin?). If your pay is referred to as “compensation” on the other hand, you can bet that your life is good indeed!
Ol’ Scratch, your “Bottom line” definitions – very well put.
The money that is “profit” in hospitals goes primarily to new buildings beds and infrastructure since the hospitals are only allowed a slim “profit” margin and become increasingly scr’e’wtinized when getting near 2%. An in-law of mine that is an MD says there are essentially 3-types in medical school that congregate in classes of near equal size. 1- Those that want to make money because they’re smart enough to be Doctors; 2- Those that have families and relatives in the medical field; 3- Those that want to help others. And if you’re lucky to get a physician from category 3 consider yourself to be very fortunate and treat them like gold because they are the ones who will provide the best care but tend to burn out.
You should watch Idiocracy – an early 2000’s movie by Mike Judge (creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space) about an average joe who wakes up in a dumbed down future (resembling our present more every day…) where he is considered a genius. the film would probably be a hit with many on this forum actually. It’s a comedy but at times scarily accurate. There’s a scene at a hospital that resembles exactly what you describe about the touchscreens, ala supermarket self-checkout.
Jim, the reason they can’t/won’t prosecute the Clintons should be obvious. They know where all the bodies are buried. If they get hauled into court the kleptocracy will go down and too many people in Washington and New York are making too much money to allow that to happen.
They could just shut up and do their time making sure all the money finds its way to chelsea and then on and on it goes. Doubtful scenario but the clintons going to jail would not bring down the whole kleptocracy
“..the Department of Justice and its subsidiary, the FBI, look culpable in a range of cover-ups and mis-directions. If the DOJ becomes disabled, how does any of this get resolved?”
The return of the city-state, or the state.
Localism isn’t good just for salad ingredients.
Largest nations on Earth.
China is authoritarian
Russia too
In India they are mostly trying to survive or find a place to pop a squat
Brazil is mostly poor and lawless.
The US will go one of 2 ways.
It appears that the China/Russia model are the most likely.
Time to break it up.
Secession is the wave of the future
Agreed! Could see the first serious cracks in the US facade by 2020 I think. Probably start out unofficially (a continuation of abandonment by the Feds combined with conflict over federal and state/local laws) and then work its way up from there. At some point the tipping point will arrive and it will accelerate quickly from there, much like the USSR disintegration played out. But if the dollar collapses in earnest first, the collapse would be almost immediate. Especially if bank bail-ins are imposed. That would be the final straw for most people and the war would be on.
Yes, we will throw off the bicoastal Elite and the rule of PC Cult. Then nature can take its course and we will divide on the basis of race and culture.
Hate to say it, but I agree with you here for once. But I doubt that will be the end of it. Due to existing population pressures the resulting balkanized states will almost certainly be warring with each other right from the start. And if there’s loose left-over nukes involved as well…
Excellent comment!
A crack in our country’s armor was revealed during the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 where the Democratic candidate won the popular vote but lost the election due to the Electoral College. How much longer will the West Coast and Northeast moderate to liberal blue states tolerate being dictated to by southern and mostly rural far right red states whose majority in Congress is assured by either gerrymandering or rural white Evangelical voting bloc? With the new proposed tax plan taking away state and local tax deductions the blue states are fuming. Our country functions best if led from the center. Too far right or left leadership creates major earthquakes. Considering that red states get back more in federal dollars than they give, they might miss the blue states if this happens.
Stop lying! The are no “blue states”!
Look at the counties electoral map. The only reason there is any blue on there at all is because of extreme fraud and fake voter inflation in NYC, Chicago, and LA.
And you know this!
There is no such thing as leading from the center, and this is precisely the issue.
Its not leading at all.
It’s placating
Bargaining
Sharing
Reacting
Co-opting
Kowtowing
Equivocating
The country, as it is not a nation (just ask Clarence Thomas), is too disparate, too fragmented.
It’s broken
Irreparably
You are disparaging a whole lot of moderate centrist past leaders. Namely, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, JFK and even the Great Compromisers Benjamin Franklin and Henry Clay. This country does not suffer radicals for long from either the left or right. Equivocating, sharing, bargaining are bad values? Maybe in China or Russia or the PRK.
Bargaining, sharing and compromise are what the founding fathers designed our system to promote so no one person or party has their way all the time. When these actions ceased so did most of Congress’s other actions.
66 million people voted for the blue candidate in the last election!They are all frauds right! The only fraud is in the red states with gerrymandering and voter suppression. Just because the 500,00 residents of Wyoming vote Republican and it makes a big red square on the color map it does not supercede the 500,000 voters in Colorado’s Jefferson County who voted Democratic even if it makes a tiny blue spot on the color map. There would have been a lot more blue on that map if Bernie would have been the nominee!
Like I said, extreme fraud and voter inflation. The numbers are bogus phantom numbers. Just like the staged bogus phantom propaganda that passes for reality on the MSM.
I know this idea will play as cognitive dissonance in your mind, (maybe our Soviet friend Mountain Finc could explain this to you better than I can), but once you come to the position and understanding where government is involved in the production of culture (see: Jesuit/CIA mafia), then you can’t really trust anything in the media. Sorry, but that’s where we’re at.
LOL 500,000 voters in Colorado’s Jefferson County who voted Democrat LOL
Yeah and since HRC colluded with the DNC, poor ole Bernie never got the chance
Reply to Tate:
Jeffco election results:
Approx. 300,000 votes cast (correction)
Clinton 49%
Trump 42%
Other 9%
Wyoming
Approx255,000 votes cast (correction)
Trump 68%
Clinton 22%
Other 9%
Wyoming 98,000 square miles, 585,000 residents
Jeffco 774 square miles 565,000 residents
All the red/blue map proves is that rural areas vote Republican and metro areas vote Democratic. A large red area on the map means nothing other than it is rural which is most st of the country. Most of the country is moderate and doesn’t really have a party who truly represents them.
Reply to BuckP:
When you commit such large factual errors, people are less inclined to take as serious a statement such as “The only fraud is in the red states with gerrymandering and voter suppression.”
That was my point.
akmofo: “Look at the counties electoral map. The only reason there is any blue on there at all is because of extreme fraud and fake voter inflation in NYC, Chicago, and LA.”
No one says something this stupid by accident. akmofo either knows better or has swallowed someone’s propaganda. Please have a look at the following link:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/
It shows several different views of the 2016 federal electoral results. If you look at the map of individual counties, you might get the impression that the U.S. overwhelmingly voted for the Republican candidate. But red counties skew heavily rural, while blue counties are largely urban. Resize the counties so that the area is actually representative of how many people live there and red/blue are very closely balanced, just like the popular vote (which the Republican candidate actually lost, as is well understood).
“Fake voter inflation in NYC, Chicago and LA?” These are only the three largest cities in the United States. Boo hoo, the cities cheated! They only seem important because they’re full of people! Elections are really decided by geographical surface area, not by the voting population — everybody knows that!
Like I said, stupid.
Not as stupid as watching CityTV when Toronto police cars were being vandalized and set on fire while the Toronto police watched their masked own do it. Then, on Day 2, when Toronto police were kettling Torontonians for hours in the rain, the human cattle did NOTHING! Not even mew! This is the country Elrond Hubbard is from. Mew for us Elrond! Mew!
I can tell you that in Californias case we have allowed the motor voter law to pass.
Basically they know if they sign up illegal aliens they will vote overwhelmingly for Progressive Democrats!
Meanwhile back in the land of reality we know without a doubt there are at least 4 million illegal aliens living in California and at last count 800,000 have signed up to vote with zero distinction on Federal or local voting!
Yes folks wide spread voter fraud is happening in all of California!
But wait it gets worse 1 in 5 people signed up to vote don’t belong on the roles or are registered to vote in more than one place….
BUt hey there is no voter fraud going in…..yea right!
https://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/motor-voter-act-voter-fraud
A pox on both parties. They are both overdue for a Fourth Turning.
benr–
I am in CA too and was horrified that illegals were legally able to driver’s licenses. UMMM, is this the USA? Where do I live? It was definitely a move to make illegals more palatable in my opinion. Oh and BTW—they call them “non-citizens” now. Another twist of words to make it all okey dokey.
The whole extravaganza is heading toward a constitutional crisis that might clean out the system like a Death Wish coffee enema.
We should all be so lucky. This is little more than a bi-partisan witch hunt to eliminate Trump, who, granted, fully deserves to be eliminated on any number of grounds; but doing so will hardly end the misery. It will simply be the next grifter up, with another one just like them patiently waiting on deck after that. And so it goes. What ails America goes far deeper than Trump and Clinton, although they’re certainly the Madison Avenue poster children for the disease.
Unfortunately for us all, a revolution – almost certainly bloody and messy – will be our only way out of this unholy mess, as entrenched illegitimate power never goes quietly into the deep dark night. Like all things American these days, ours will no doubt be bigger, bloodier, and messier than any that have gone before (and televised in Hi-Def, sponsored by Lockheed of course!), but that’s entirely fitting. I don’t think we’d have it any other way.
mmm death wish coffee is tasty!
JHK,
Most excellent column. You ask the questions and state facts of the matter that dare not be asked or speak their names.
Sounds like a big, fat CONSPIRACY to me. I don’t think it was willful *at the onset*, but covering lies with more lies (and adding more liars and grifters as it goes along) always leads to this result.
A bit of history regarding just one of the dastardly deed-doers is instructive.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-02/13-shocking-facts-about-special-prosecutor-robert-mueller
Sir Mueller has always worked as bagman, water-carrier, thrower of smoke bombs and installer of mirrors; that’s his job, and the “insiders” all know that he is now, and has forever been, dependable in this position.
…So, from that perspective, we get to another of your paragraphs that I can hear softly ticking behind the walls of power. (Thankfully, the powerful either don’t hear it, or scoff at the notion that they may be “displaced” by one means or another.)
“I write this as a still-registered Democrat myself — though I consider myself their enemy now, yet hardly a Trump partisan. Are there any like me out there who would like to see both parties tossed onto the garbage barge of history? Of course, to say that also means throwing out a cargo of terrible ideas and beliefs, not just two clown cars of personalities. Identity politics, zero interest rate policy, American Exceptionalism, endless debt, nation-building in foreign lands, FASB-157, sanctuary cities, Title IX coercion, racketeering in health care and higher ed, market interventions, ambiguous borders… is just some of the cargo that needs to be dumped overboard with both parties.” -JHK
I happen to be registered as “a nobody” (independent), so I would say, “Hell Yes!” to the question posed in the second sentence. (…And yes, there are many more issues that need a look and a push onto the garbage heap.) I do believe there are legions more who would say the same, but are keeping their heads down and their powder dry for the time being. As The Long Emergency deepens, the cluelessness and uselessness of this crop of opportunistic assholes will be revealed to all but the most deluded or dependent. (Of course, NOT to the president of our regional NPR station, who will proclaim Johnny “Jingo” McCain as an American hero whenever the name should pop up like an ugly puppet in a Punch and Judy show. Perhaps they’ll stuff him for use in a fund-raising road show. I read about such a thing… somewhere. ;-))
Ps, The DOJ is already drooling and paraplegic in its wheelchair. (Just who is Attorney General these days?) It only grabs the ass-cheeks of “the little people” now as it tells a cute little joke; it goes like this: “Yer fucked. Hahaha!”
“Death Wish coffee enema”
I swear, I think I had one of those a few daze back… No ‘actual’ coffee for 2 weeks, tho…
An important yet often ignored component of the man known as Mueller is his patrician blood right.
His breeding
His education
The American WASP will defend the hive.
This area of privilege doesn’t shrink.
They lost their universities, their clubs, their vacation spots, but never the reins.
Those they hold firm.
You trying out for a Fox News position Jim?
A blatant attempt by Trump and Republicans at further kleptocracy in tax give always to the wealthy which requires deficit spending in an economy that’s growing, going against every principle conservatives preach against when democrats are in power.
Evidence that the Trump campaign was looking for dirt on Hillary from the Russians. Evidence Trump’s campaign manager conspirered against the US.
And you say “Oh look over there crooked Hillary.”
Clinton is not in power the Great Dissembler and his cronies are and maybe should be the focus of limited time and space for maximum effect.
Sometimes punctuation marks are our friends…
Sometimes verbs are required to marry subject and predicate…
As to your meaning, near as it can be determined:
I think our host’s point with regard to HRC is restoration of Rule of Law. A concept apparently lost on some, as well as the MSM, who, refusing the obvious, prefer the reigning Russian fiction.
Tom Perez, now recently able to offer a coherent sentence minus the word “fuck” stated that it would be incompetence NOT to seek dirt on the opposition candidate.
As for Manafort, well, what can we say? His tenure as manager was brief and the indictments are from previous years but to the true believers I imagine timing is a mere detail of interest only to pedants.
Thanks for the grammar corrections School Marm.
As to your Trump apologies. There is good evidence now the Trump campaign had dealings with Russia to try to smear Hillary. Our now Attorney General lied about meeting with Russian officials. Russia had a massive social media campaign to try to disrupt our elections, in favor of Trump, defining Russia as a hostile power. And this OK with you and the other Trump boosters?
And this is only the beginning of the investigation findings.
Where there’s smoke…
Dream on. In the future no one will care.
And yet the evidence is at best nebulous for Trump and Russia while the evidence linking Hillary to Russia and election fraud and tampering is a mountain! Meanwhile the DNC has been flirting with every commie dictator that would pay attention to them!
All the never trumpers with trump derangement syndrome are all but frothing at any associate how ever short to Trump that even talked to a Russian! Hell if Trump had salad with Russian dressing all the fools would scream AHA see!
A great pox upon us all!
“Are there any like me out there who would like to see both parties tossed onto the garbage barge of history? ”
I am with you, Brother. Where do I sign? Problem is, the void created after the housecleaning would be filled with grifters and demons before the garbage boat had even set sail.
What if we moved the nation’s capitol to Kansas (centrally located) and started over again?
The Talking Heads are beginning to say exactly that. The DNC and the RNC are increasingly irrelevant.
Add to the list of items the murder of Seth Rich.
He was clearly the leaker of the Clinton emails.
The Clinton’s are well organized serial criminals. Their Russian connections were used to give the appearance of Trump’s collusion, then used to bring the American security apparatus to bear, then picked up by the Obama administration to ‘unmask’ their finds, all supported by the black mail operations of Debbie Wasserman Shultz in congress.
And yet they still lost the election. There won’t be a bloody revolution in America, the sheeple are awake. The only blood to be spilled will be career politicians and psychopathic bankers. We are already seeing them bailing out.
Add to arkancides, the dead microbiologists and dead bankers.
Yes, the Clinton Foundation is a class Rico case waiting to happen. And an investigation into Hillary will open to even greater depths, depths of child trafficking and occult/pedophile networks.
Oh no say it aint so I heard tell of the downfall of spacey after a nice long flight with slick willey to pedo island.
I too am thoroughly disgusted with both main parties. I don’t view any of the third parties as viable or desirable either. I’m also frustrated at the lack of good info on just what is going on out there. The MSM such as the NYT and WAPO has their ax to grind and are loathe to print anything that bodes ill for the Dem’s. The whole thing is a circus at this point.I keep waiting for it all to implode and wonder why the DOW just keeps on climbing no matter what.
I’m presently traveling in the southeast of the US which is new to me. While I like the sun and warmth it just feels like a scary place to me. The driving is nuts. I don’t see the people here as having a cohesive society if all hit the fan. I’m sure hoping the rumors of big disruptions this weekend are just rumors; this is not where I’d want to be if the you know what hit the fan. In fact, I find myself thinking about that more often. Where would I want myself and loved ones to be if things got too weird?
I understand your feelings. I’ve lived in the deep south most of my life and I love the place and people, but I’m considering a move myself. Though it may be financially very difficult for me to do. Plus I have close family that will never leave. I’ll probably never leave either, just hunker down and fight for my home and people.
Statistically speaking I think MIT did a study and concluded that CANADA’s Rocky Mountains is the best bet for survival if SHTF.
P.S. If you hit the border right now you will likely get in based on the USA cutting back on immigration policy wise. CANADA is bucking that trend right now. After SHTF the borders will be closed up tight.
RW
Its too cold in Canada for me. I love sweet, hot, sticky, humid weather.
By the way, Jim Kunstler, you are awesome. I love your work. Thank you very much for getting up everyday and writing about this stuff.
Bottom line is that the country is being run by criminals and pretty much has been since McKinley was assassinated. Time is running out though because the rise of China is unstoppable. Trump is the white man’s last hurrah because he’s such a good liar, in ways better than Bill Clinton even. Trump will take the heat for collapsing the economy.
So you admit the Chinese are as racist if not more than Whites ever were? Yet where is the condemnation as they take over Africa? White Liberals are the biggest hypocrites the world has ever seen.
Africa will suck the chiineers dry and leave them a a dessicated husk.
No, Janos,
YOU are the biggest hypocrite the world has ever seen.
A jew selling out his own kind.
You would have made a perfect official in Vichy France.
Daveed
You made me chuckle. I have, very tongue in cheek, been saying we ought to move the capital to Kansas City, lock stock and barrel for years. Brick by brick move the entire mall. Talk about public works creating jobs. Why? Because the liberal, overcrowded East Coast imprints itself on the goombahs in the Federal government and decision making is totally slanted towards the Lords of Wall Street. Trump was elected by the Midwest, South and the West (sans California) and at least shows a crack in the dam of the attempted liberal coup of the Constitution.
Well, my thought was to select a cornfield in Kansas, maybe a township’s worth of land (would that be big enough?) and build, from scratch, a new US Capitol. The architecture would be Kunstler-approved, of course. I hadn’t thought of moving the existing structures from DC, but I guess if the London Bridge can be moved to Arizona, anything’s possible. But here’s the big question: If it were moved to Kansas City…..would it be the Missouri or Kansas side of the river?
If it were moved to Kansas City…..would it be the Missouri or Kansas side of the river?
Preferably in the middle. In a trench.
Kansas City is beautiful. I was there two weeks ago visiting a childhood friend. It has many fine architectural features such as the Country Club Plaza, the World War 1 Museum (only WW1 museum in the US), the classic train station and fountains and statuary all throughout the area.
The Nelson-Atkins Art Museum is first class! They have more Van Gogh’s than San Francisco! One thing they DON’T have is streets teaming with homeless. I saw only three panhandlers when I visited.
Last time I was in San Francisco I saw hundreds of homeless. One was so bold, she was shooting up just next to the freeway on ramp. The homeless are so despicable that they take whizzes pointing toward Market Street. (Almost hit my minivan once!) Also, who wants to see the homeless masturbating. Blech.
Jen in San Jose
Why not have the Capital bldg be a huge barn, complete with hay and animals? The sights and smell would help to keep the Congress Critters humble.
How about admit what is going on and fuse both of these sad-sacks into the Property Party at long last. It is what they are all about anyway. Does anyone in D.C. even pretend to give a flying fuck about anything but money?
Then allow guns in Congress. Hopefully the result is a Reservoir Dogs style shoot-em-up where nobody is left standing. Rinse. Repeat.
I said it before on a previous post: the Clinton’s will never be indicted, let alone investigated or jailed.
They simply know too much about too many and no one in any position of power has the ability or desire to apply the rule of law to them.
As for wishing both parties would fall off a cliff, I’m right there with you. A few buddies of mine in CA, where it doesn’t matter much anyway, have switched their voter registration to Independent from Republican. I know plenty of former Democrats who no longer donate to or engage in any defense of that party’s policies.
And we’re all lowly Millennials, too.
In the end it will take revolution to remove the oligarchy. But I have no clue as to what comes next; there is nothing unifying the people/s of modern America. If the existing power structure is removed you will see a civil war that makes the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Balkans in the 1990’s look like a picnic. Every tribe has a score to settle, and with half a billion firearms floating around the US, you can bet that a lot of those scores will be settled very violently.
I’ve always been surprised at the high level of discourse the Founding generation engaged in prior, during, and after the American Revolution. Even the written thought contemporary with the French and Russian revolutions is lightyears ahead of what passes for discussion in this country. Remove the power structure, and those looking for order will listen to anyone who can put together a passably cogent narrative.
Needless to say, if that happens, I’m getting the hell out of here; there is nothing worth defending here (save family).
I said it before on a previous post: the Clinton’s will never be indicted, let alone investigated or jailed.
They simply know too much about too many and no one in any position of power has the ability or desire to apply the rule of law to them.
Absolutely correct!
Their day of reckoning may come someday. Yes, I’m sure they have a lot of dirt on their fellow political class, but they are still human, vulnerable and in actuality just white trash from Arkansas.
The future of America is Bosnia times Rwanda. It’s all going to come down to Race. And White Liberals who don’t get that are going to be in a lot of trouble since normal Whites won’t want them and they can’t defend themselves.
“Normal whites” are already on the menu, in case you haven’t been paying attention. They’ll be coming for you soon as well, my racist friend. By the way, I’ll bet you’re independently wealthy too, aren’t you? That would explain a lot of things.
Yes, because you people empowered them while disempowering us. Mocked us to scorn. Shamed us – while filling dark heads with indignation and rage. Substituted race for class grievance. Bait and switch the blame to us rather than yourselves who owned the slaves and/or brought them here. You knew what you were doing and deserve no sympathy. We’ll be coming for you all too.
You are right. It will mostly come down to race, but class will be a factor too.
I think most people in this country lie in the center politically. I’d guess that most Americans, if really pressed, would either identify as independent or would be willing to switch-hit depending on the candidate or truly don’t care. I understand that many people, myself included, are registered to one party or another to vote in primaries but I seriously doubt that the two parties together have a clear majority anymore. Most Americans, if pressed, would probably say –
a. they both suck/all full of shit
b. i’m registered ____ but really an independent
c. don’t know/don’t care
If i’m close to being right then most Americans are not really being represented by these two basket-case wayward dinosaurs of a party.
And if most people drop their party allegiances as quickly as I have witnessed with people I know, then there is plenty of room for one or more new *major* political parties (not looking at you jill stein) to succeed and/or for wholesale revolution to blossom.
What comes after a revolution you ask? Smooth transition to new “by the people-for the people” leadership? Disintegration into warring states/regional republics? Civil war along ethnic or ideological lines? Brutal repression by M-I-C and oligarchs? Excellent question…
Seawolf
Agree with you last. Move up the assassination to JFK. The ascent of the Deep State started with his demise. He ticked off so many people in the 1960s Deep State that they are still trying to block release of the details. Since then, the Feds have been more insular and power grubbing each year. Trump is a realization that something needs to be done to stop or reverse this trend. Clinton is living proof of the corruption that is in DC and the arrogance that they run the show.
China will run into the same problem the US has had. Destroy your consumer base (middle class) and lose your raisin-d’etre for your economy. Consumers run the show. The current world wide debacle is the result of globalization and will eventually lead us into a feudal world with the Elite in charge and the rest of us, serfs.
” Destroy your consumer base (middle class) and lose your raisin-d’etre for your economy. Consumers run the show.”
“…The wealth of a nation is nothing more than a nation of consumers willing and able to spend…” ~ Maynard Keynes (paraphrased)
The more you dig into this the more you realize how deep the rabbit hole goes. Had JFK gone after the people like Putin did he would have been called a tyrant, but we all know what happened there. I’m not talking about the Mafia either. I’m talking about the MIC & Big Oil & the CIA. The first thing he should have done is get rid of the whole WW2 crowd. Next he should have imprisoned Big oil executives like Putin did and nationalized the oil industry. Finally he should have done away with the CIA after the Bay of Pigs.
Finally he should have done away with the CIA after the Bay of Pigs.
He was reportedly seriously considering doing exactly that. That was likely the final straw for him. He should have gone after the CIA as soon as he took office, but he was concerned that what was eventually going to happen to him anyway would have happened then. Could very well be that it was all simply inevitable. Ike certainly warned him in no uncertain terms on the way out the door. We like to remember that Kennedy was all powerful in retrospect, but it simply wasn’t so. He had many powerful enemies inside the Beltway right from the start who talked openly about getting rid of him, so much so that JFK himself even took to morbidly joking about it at official WH functions.
In the end, we can see that the Liberals always more of a threat to our Republic than the Conservatives. You’ve been wrong about everything.
I’ve been wrong? They’re pretty much conspirators. The “Republic” you speak was sold off over a 100 years ago to the Zionist globalists, so lamenting which gang of fools was most responsible for it at this point in time is a complete waste of time. You seem to be smart enough to comprehend that, so I guess you just prefer wearing blinders to seeing the truth. Believe me, your beloved white masters will not save you Janos. They’ll kick your corpse into the same shallow grave with all the rest of the colored people you so often denigrate here. You’re a complete waste of an otherwise functioning brain.
And you’re on the side of the Zionists. You said as much? No, you said it exactly. You’re a Globalist, just like them. A fellow traveler. A hater of his own People. Morally, they are superior to you because at least they are natural and love themselves. But you! What excuse is there for you, in Heaven or on Earth? Natural or Supernatural?
Given that JFK was easily assassinated by the CIA, it seems doubtful that anyone could have gone after the CIA to break it up either back during JFKs tenure, or since. The only thing that could ever break up the CIA is USD simply because they cannot operate without it internally, or externally. Frankly, the CIA will go down with the good ship United States of America
based on helmsmanship when it hits the USD iceberg with not enough lifeboats onboard for a reset on a global scale. Thermonuclear ‘hot’ world war three will enact the final cover-up
of a bastardized global macroeconomic system run by degenerate bankster functionaries.
RW
His biggest goof was rejecting Symington as VP. The uber-prick LBJ was definitely behind the coup d’etat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/02/prince-william-warns-many-people-world/
http://www.msnbc.com/interactives/geography-of-poverty/ne.html
“Clinton campaign chief, whose emails remain a truffle cache for the rooting dogs of the DOJ…”.
…rooting snouts? We do not wish to impugn man’s best friend. I do believe few of us have any friends at the DOJ….
“…If you want a friend in this town, buy a dog” ~ Harry S. Truman
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-egypt-pyramid-giza-20171102-htmlstory.html
Hillary Clinton doesn’t have any legal problems because there’s no General Maximus to rule Rome and end the corruption which has ruined her.
Ancient Rome had its own swamp. The swamp-creatures of the time would dispatch into the after-life any well-meaning do-gooder. End corruption? I think not.
The same goes with the Washington swamp with its own eco-system. The crocodilians lay in wait for anyone fool enough to say “enough”.
“Enough”? Enough is never enough. They snapping jaws would make short work.
But Trump isn’t a do-gooder. That’s the thing. Trump is in it for Trump. Everyone knows this. This presidency is a vanity project. Everyone knows this too.
Trump’s sin isn’t that he’s trying to drain the swamp. After all he hired swamp creatures to help him. Trump’s sin was to win. It’s a question of Trump getting out of line. He wasn’t even a Republican much less a principled conservative. And it was her turn dammit.
If Trump was actually a swamp-drainer we’d be referring to his administration in the past-tense by now.
That the two parties are thrown on the dustbin of history will matter little when the die-off begins.
And till the end of his days, Madiba sang the “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” song at tribal gatherings. That’s not shocking because that’s what he was. The shocking thing is Whites who cover for him – such is their hatred for their own People.
Trumps are in Japan.
Luckily, the bar is set very low.
Ole Groper, AKA HW had his hand up kimonos and hurled on the premier.
Even Trump can’t beat that
HW?
George HW Bush.
One of the lovelier moments in the Bush slide show. The old man has been elevated to sainthood even though he was a mendacious spook.
Many Americans (who are old enough to have lived through it) ask the question “Where were you when you heard the news about JFK being shot?”. I wonder if GHWB remembers where he was.
I’m hoping that the 2016 election is the beginning of the end of the 2 major parties. Even if it is a long death, the end of those 2 monsters would be a great collective good.
Here is to voting for the ‘others’.
The dinosaur legacy parties will not die unless a billionaire, willing to spend a large chunk of his fortune, comes forward with fire in the belly to knock them both out of the water. I was hoping that Trump, already with 100% name recognition, would be such a man, but he hedged his bets and went with the GOP. Perot tried it, but it was clear he didn’t want to win – just knock out GHWB, which he did. The public is dying for a third party, but in the USA cash is king. Who will step forward? Bloomberg blinked when he had the chance, and his time is now passed. Who now? Mark Cuban? Bill Gates? Mark Zuckerberg?
Another thought that strikes me that a real true reformer would almost must be an extremist ideologue at this point– because the current system of lobbyists & campaign funding has created this extremely corrupt system. So, some milquetoast moderate will not do. I believe there may be a major push by the Establishment post-Trump to install (maybe by both parties working together) some swamp dweller to continue the S.S. America from sinking too fast.
So how about a moderate extremist?
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/332156-the-43-people-who-might-run-against-trump-in-2020
The 43 ppl who may run 2020.
I wanna see Zuckerberg run just for /pol/ at 4Chan light his ass up.
Other than that, mainly swamp creatures on that list, there. But hold on, there is one stand out:
Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. Alright! Know your roll, and smell what the Rock is cookin’!
🙂 LOL if he runs Ventura as VP, I’m in.
Nice essay. To turn a Fairy Tale metaphor, we now have the hen guarding the foxhouse. That’s how upside down all this has become.
But consider this. In 1801, John Adams, defeated in his re-election attempt, attempted to gerrymander the Judiciary and return a few favors by appointing Federalist judges on the eve of Jefferson’s inauguration under the Judiciary Act of 1801. The election of 1796 was the first partisan election (Adams vs Jefferson) in our young history and it certainly was not the last; nor was it the last one fraught with controversy. Pierre-Auguste Adet was the French Foreign Minister who began openly supporting Jeffersonians and opposing Federalists. (who themselves were helped by the British) It didn’t Adams succeeded Washington (both Federalists) in 1796, but did it influence the election in 1800?
Then there was the Congressman who handed out stock certificates in railroad companies on behalf of “robber barons” on the floor of the House in the 1870s to buy votes and subsidies to build railroads west and to prop up Jay Cooke & Company. (early investment bank)
Clearly, corruption, intrigue and election scandals are not something new to American politics. This is not to say it is a good thing. But the way democracy “should” work is we (the electorate) throw the bums out every 2 years. Unfortunately, and as JHK infers, that system does not work very well because the crooks have found ways to corrupt every check and balance.
The answer is to reverse Citizens United, limit campaign donations and PACs, and place term limits on the Senate and Congress by Constitutional Amendment. That will only happen if there is a Constitutional Convention. Congress will not cut off the money supply to itself.
As most writers point out, the danger of a Constitutional Convention is how (or whether) to limit the scope and how to prevent insidious infiltration and sedition by those who would try to influence the outcome for profit or power.
As for dumping the identity politics cargo, i’m not holding my breath. I attended a teacher PD day on Halloween, and the primary activity of the day was to hold a series of “Socratic seminars” regarding a document titled “Let care shine through”. Some of the more illuminating quotes:
“..Exemplary teachers of African American students are aware of the enduring marginalization of African American people.”
” .. Teachers with political clarity are aware of the widespread existence of injustice.”
My pessimism is based on the fact that based on my observations , most educators that I have met in my 30 plus years are by and large , true believers- members of the vast cadre of the “overton window”- the gigantic circle-jerk that circulates between academia, the media, government and most of the tech giants.
Whites will fight and Whites will be Right. We’re not going to allow ourselves to be demonized unto Death by the Grievance Alliance and their minority thugs.
Rush: Pocahontas, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Jr in other words, admits that the Fix was in. It’s ova People. Trump’s Triumph is Complete. Flawless Victory!
Indeed, Janos, Hillary’s entire house of cards is falling down around her ears. If the Wicked Witch doesn’t face justice this time she never will.
“In India they are mostly trying to survive or find a place to pop a squat” — 100th Avatar
In 2017, India’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth was at about 7.18 percent compared to the previous year. The World Bank says India’s GDP growth will slow down to 7% … The USA can only dream, but is not producing.
I would not call India’s 7% growth rate “trying to survive” … The USA GDP third quarter grew at a 2.3 percent rate, slowing from the second quarter’s 2.9 percent pace (Thank you, Mr. Trump!). It is the USA that is “trying to survive”, not India.
And don’t concern yourself with poop. Prime Minister Modi has made a huge commitment to sanitation issues, and Swachh Bharat is one of the most effective programs anywhere. Swachh Bharat covers all urban and rural areas of India.
Please forgive the appearance of facts. Carry on.
The Earth cannot sustain endless growth. This is bad news, ninny.
Janos,
While Trump is a godsend to America, as a financial capitalist his biggest blind spot is that he thinks the USA can.
Alas, yes.
Why don’t you immigrate to India. You won’t be missed. You can’t measure life and happiness by GDP anyway. MAWA.
Move there?
India is the poster boy of unchecked human overpopulation.
Yet, interestingly enough, some at times present themselves as some sort of repressed minority in the US.
Billions upon billions in the world (including Pakistan)but they are a minority in certain counties in New Jersey.
The nerve of Americans!
Receive our human overspill!
Anyway
India is extremely impoverished, polluted and environmentally degredated.
Factor in gang rapes, extreme racism and religious prejudices where people are literally out-castes or pariahs.
Human excrement and effluent literally fills streets, fields and rivers.
A truly filthy and nasty place.
You’d have to be an introspection obsessed Buddhist merely to remain sane.
Yes, this is a model of growth.
When you’re sh*t on the world’s shoe, well there is one way to go
Up
What was that about lies, damn lies, and statistics?
OK let’s assume that the GDP numbers are meaningful. If you factor the 7% x India GDP @ 2.264 trillion USD spread over 1.324 billion people compared with 2.9% x US GDP @ 18.57 trillion USD spread over 324.1 million people whattaya get?
Indian emigration to the US and not the other way. But whatever.
The East is rising and West is Falling but the weather has finally turned coolish and dry and All shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well…
“If you factor the 7% x India GDP @ 2.264 trillion USD spread over 1.324 billion people compared with 2.9% x US GDP @ 18.57 trillion USD spread over 324.1 million people whattaya get?”
“Whattaya get?” You get an improvement in quality of life in India from malnourished to nourished.
In the USA you get a deterioration in quality of life, from excess to gross excess, to hoarding, to filling storage sheds, and then to anxiety that leads to buying guns to protect all your unnecessary and mostly unused belongings.
Get some perspective and some context, Billy Hill.
Oh for heaven’s sake Janet…. Guns and storage sheds indeed. You need to get out more and look around. There is a lot of wealth and economic activity out there and not just for the 1%. If an economy the size of the US grew at 6-7% we’d be complaining about the construction cranes everywhere and the frenzy of money worship.
Is India feeding its billions better? Bravo. Were you to ask the Indian on the street would he emigrate to America today the answer I’ll wager even in our moral decrepitude is more likely to be yes than no. Ask the most woeful US denizen if emigration to India is available and you get a blank stare. That is all. For heaven’s sake dial it back from Defcon One.
India loves the H1Flee Visa.
Loves
Trump and the anti-Russian sanctions
Well, for starters, what kind of sanctions are we talking about? As far as I know, Trump refuses to enforce the sanctions prescribed in the very law that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnel put in place, after the attempt to assassinate the Republican Party’s whip and a friend of Trump on his birthday.
For Russia, these sanctions are the same as a bird shot to an elephant, as these sanctions relate mainly to the geological exploration of the future oil industry; and Trump can cancel at any time, as they go without his signature and in addition to the law that prohibits him from lifting the sanctions.
I’m not talking about the fact that Russia may well develop its own technology in the remaining time if it takes its money out of the US Treasuries and invests one percent of recovered money into the corresponding R&D.
And to abandon the dollar after this in the current situation would be as easy as peeing on your two fingers; especially if you consider that the sanctions that Trump refuses to impose essentially make Russia abandon the dollar.
And I assure you that after their introduction, the Dow Jones will collapse by a third, since in addition to extracting Russian money from the American economy, these sanctions de facto limit the volume of goods and services that are traded for dollars.
But unfortunately, after that Trump could still get a kick in the ass, since the growth of the Dow Jones is his best weapon against Hillary Clinton. And if Trump leaves, then the Dow Jones will collapse by another third and after that the talk about investing in the world capitalist system will be meaningless because of absence of the world capitalist system.
Are there any like me out there who would like to see both parties tossed onto the garbage barge of history?
Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods? 😉
Everything you have discussed in your post today is exactly why I decided a while ago that whatever is going to happen is simply going to happen, and all the sound and fury on the Internet that such-and-such is true because Kool-Aid won’t make a dime’s worth of difference. :-/
The only thing that really is making a dime’s worth of difference is the leviathan cargoes of “dimes” (printed money, in reality) with which the European, Japanese, and Swiss central banks monthly shower the financial markets of the world. If it weren’t for that, I have no doubt that the history of the previous eighteen months would have been different indeed. 😀
Toss out the duopoly Dems & Repubs and what will manifest is the oligopoly Deep State and their Military Industrial Complex. This is why it is necessary to replenish the tree of Liberty
with the blood of patriots & saints so that the creative destruction allows one to build on a more suitable substrate going forward. Frankly, either the bond market or the stock market is about to crash outright so I, for one, don’t think we need to do anything but sit back and eat popcorn waiting for the show to begin. Moreover, it is one thing to have disinformation campaigns of fake news, but it is entirely another matter if we have fake markets, and fake macroeconomics.
‘Too silly’ is a statistical term, and so are ‘Crud Factors’, eh.
RW
You are not alone…..
But Global Neoliberalism is an economic theory that has to be dumped into the same ashbin of history.
And what is that except Marxism for Capitalists. Absurd? Of course. Both Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism are one absurdist spectrum, all devoted to ever increasing material consumption and fulfillment via matter. Fascism and National Socialism have different premises, a different view of Man and different economics therefore.
https://dailystormer.ws/homocaust-sick-pervert-kevin-spacey-accused-by-8-more-young-men-of-being-a-sick-pervert/
It’s all developing nicely. Spacey desperately fled to the Protection of the Rainbow, only to be thrown out by Gays desperate to disavow him. It’s all for naught: all Gays are into young men and teenagers or Ephebes. Everyone knows that – just like everyone knew about Weinstein and Spacey.
To be clear: Pedophile, the catch all word, means kids. There’s no evidence of that yet. Ephebe means youth or post adolescent. Hebeophile means a lover of adolescents. Lolita was a Hebe and Humbert Humbert a Hebeophile.
Its a red herring.
USA and EU are in a slow collapse.
Weinstein, who cares? Not me.
phileo is love of family, brotherly love, you don’t have sex with family if you ‘phileo’ them.
what do you think the age of consent should be?
I think the moral age of consent should be eighteen. While the vast majority of sixteen and seventeen year olds are physiological adults, I think it’s still wrong for legal adults to make overtures towards young men and women that age because they are still minors. If they are still minors, then what their parents want for them is what matters to anybody with even a halfway-decent moral compass. This remains true even when the legal age of consent is 16, as it is in many states. And I can pretty much guarantee that no parents worthy of the name are going to want their high-school-age kid having relations with anyone 21 or older!
Though the positive side of the sixteen-year-old age of consent of some states, though, is that it prevents religious-nutter prosecutors from bringing high-school kids who couple with one another up on sexual abuse charges. Other folks here may think such prosecutions are a good way to deal with sexually active high-school kids, but I just can’t and don’t think so. A lot of those kids will end up on sex-offender lists for the rest of their lives, after all!
Though the positive side of the sixteen-year-old age of consent of some states, though,
Ugh! I wish the WordPress platform had a comment-edit function, for those of us who Comment While Sleepy!
My evaluation of the matter: I think show-biz attracts people who are predisposed to use other people in very negative ways. And the most egregious of those ways is sexual harassment, abuse, and assault. That’s why I simply do not allow myself to become emotionally invested in anybody or anything from that industry. It’s not worth it, and that whole scene is the opposite of who I am and what I’m about.
Should we make generalizations about all straight white men being sick predators and abusers because of Harvey Weinstein and Dan Schneider? I’m sure a lot of radical feminists are doing exactly that. And there you have the very reason that all identity politics are going to be the one of the gravediggers that buries our society. 🙁
This is why it is necessary to replenish the tree of Liberty
with the blood of patriots & saints…”–Robert White
We did that in 1776. You like the results?
More spilt blood is not a solution.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
Always covering for the wicked.
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2009/08/jeffersons-tree-of-liberty-quote-in.html
[ bobwhite – that’s a joke, right ? ]
Patriots & tyrants it is, much appreciated, messianicdruid., and no, I was not joking. Thanks for the history lesson, I’m a CANUCK.
Note: If all the patriots & tyrants spill their blood to replenish the tree of Liberty it is likely that growth will return whilst everyone else is cleaning up the mess.
RW
I should never start at the bottom.
I apologize for being unaware of a fellow poster and for taking liberties with your name.
I apologize to Janet for suspecting a spurious quote.
Even tyrants will be forgiven, what about the impulsive?
This is new. An apology in this forum. Shows maturity, intelligence, consideration of others’ feelings. Nice one!
Malthusian theory of population would beg to differ with respect to the viability of spilling blood as a solution to overpopulation, methinks. And thermonuclear ‘hot’ world war three might not be a solution, but it sure will be effective existentially IMHO.
RW
Japan is fuct. Glowing.
FUCK YOU, BEAU BERGDAHL
Thank you, Sergeant Bergdahl for your service. You have saved the lives of many US soldiers with your information. Bergdahl was a “gold mine” of intelligence, helping the military better understand insurgents and how they imprison hostages.
Amber Dach, who spent 16 years in military intelligence, was the primary analyst assigned to Bergdahl’s case for the five years after he disappeared. She described how eager he was to help intelligence officials at a hospital in Germany days after he was returned to U.S. authorities. Though his voice was weak and raspy, he helped authorities and even drew diagrams in his downtime to bring to his next debriefing session.
Dach and another official who debriefed Bergdahl both testified that his time in Germany was extended partly so he could offer additional time-sensitive intelligence.
“He was very motivated to just download all of the details that he recalled,” she testified. “It was a gold mine. It really reshaped the way we did intel collection in the area.”
An official from the military agency that helps reintegrate former captives and develops survival training for service members testified that information Bergdahl provided him was invaluable.
Bergdahl’s a deserter Janet. He abandoned his post and his comrades were wounded looking for him. Just because he was eager to talk to Americans after spending five years with Taliban doesn’t make him a hero. He deserted his unit and got caught by the enemy, that’s it. Now he’s a hero? POWs are heroes but not if they willingly give up and walk into the hands of the enemy cuz they were tired of fighting. Don’t canonize him just because Trump doesn’t like him.
Wait was your “thank you for your service” comment satire? Did i miss something
The Judge did this just to spite Trump I assume. Or because he likes traitors perhaps? Which is worse? It seems that military courts are hopelessly compromised by the Left just like the regular court system.
There was a time that someone like Bergdahl would have faced a firing squad.
sprawlcapital
Go back and look at mark to market suspension when oil prices were completely in the dumspster. The suspension of mark to market of the oil field debt also plays nicely into out host’s accounting notes.
wm
But Global Neoliberalism is an economic theory that has to be dumped into the same ashbin of history. == BT
Why such a hurry? You still could use it to sabotage couple of Latin American economies…
Argentina has already been screwed.
“Earlier this morning House Judiciary Committee representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) submitted a resolution calling for Robert Mueller to resign as special counsel overseeing the FBI investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government saying, among other things, that the former FBI director is “hopelessly compromised” as a result of his failed oversight of the controversial Uranium One transaction. Here is an excerpt from a press release posted to Gaetz’s website earlier today:..”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-03/hopelessly-compromised-judiciary-member-calls-muellers-resignation-over-uranium-one-
If Hillary goes down, the Grand Inquisitor Mueller goes down with her. The dirty democrats and their lackeys in the press thought that Trump would have been gone by now under their severe pressure, but they have misjudged the heroic nature of the man. It has only made him stronger.
The modern national flag of the Russian Federation from the pitch of Peter the Great is an inverted Dutch flag, the shipyards of the British East India Company served as a model for the construction of St. Petersburg, the Boston Tea Party was in fact an uprising against the East India Company of English colonists who fell under the influence of the Dutch West India Company, whose headquarters were in New Amsterdam, now the city of New York, and the Great Russian Revolution-Counter-Revolution began precisely with this work of Karl Marx:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/11.htm
This explains why, before President Truman, Russia and the United States have consistently been allies for 200 years, and now, when both the Syrian war against ISIS, the events in Ukraine and the Donbass, and the recent elections in the United States show that the struggle of the Colored World Projects more and more is manifested in the open, freed from the clothes of national states, it is especially important to recall this past, in particular how Knights’ Orders in England and the Netherlands began to turn into trading companies and trade with the Grand Duchy of Moscow bypassing the Hanseatic League, that the fight between the Donkey and the Elephant is actually a fight between the Donkey and the Camel of West India Company, it is a struggle with itself of Allocamelus from which, paradoxically, have emerged both companies, which became the basis of the modern capitalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allocamelus
Cultural references:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21znmhNdr4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcze7EGorOk
Argentina has already been screwed == benr
When assessing the events taking place in the world, it is necessary to start from the premise that the global economic crisis is, above all, a cultural crisis.
This is manifested in the fact that people who make decisions in connection with the crisis, by virtue of their education and human qualities, have been put forward to these places in the previous rather quiet period of time.
Not only they can’t make an adequate decision, but they can not even name the problem with a correct name, so they will continue to repeat only those propaganda clichés that their puppeteers invented solely in order to sabotage the economy of their geopolitical opponents.
In Russia, this crisis has acquired a particularly pathological character, since all the leading economists of Russia (leading by their position in scientific hierarchy) were trained in the country that is now waging an economic war against Russia, and now their students, or rather, those whom that country thoroughly brainwashed, forced to fight with their former professors rearguard fights.
I, of course, mean a rare in its idiocy decision to raise the discount rate in conditions of chronic underfunding of the ruble economy. Naturally, in the context of the economic crisis associated with the fall in oil prices, the aggravation of this underfunding worsened the outlook for the development of the ruble economy (and, accordingly, the proposed ruble rate), in particular, reducing its ability to increase oil consumption in the domestic market of Russia.
But in their textbooks it was written that in order to combat inflation, it is necessary to raise the discount rate, and robots can not ignore the program that is embedded in them.
And they can not understand that this is not inflation, but an economic war, since in American educational classes for the Papuans named after Jeffrey Sachs such phrases as “economic war” and “economic killer” were forbidden to use, and any person who uses these words, will be declared incompetent.
Raising rates causes inflation.
There are two “realities”. One for the commons and one that is exactly opposite for the elite. Once you understand this, all that’s necessary is to know the common propaganda and understand that true reality is exactly opposite.
So:
1/ Common Pharma meds and Doctors do not heal but harm and kill
2/ Common mass produced foods do not feed, but starve you of nutrition
3/ Common drinks do not hydrate you but dehydrate you
4/ The common education system teaches you to be ignorant, stupid, and hate learning
5/ The media does not inform, but dis-informs and deliberately distracts
6/ While the city should be the quintessential common space, in actuality it is now designed to isolate and atomize you
7/ Government does not work for, but against you
And on and on
I suspect we ARE rapidly on our way to a constitutional crisis, with Trump firing Mueller and then pardoning all six or seven or eight of his associates who will have been indicted by then.
I’m sure there is a difference between Trump and a run-of-the-mill tinpot Third World autocratic ruler, but I’ll be damned if I can tell what it is.
The difference is that Trump acts in the Constitutional constraints, but that does not necessarily mean that he must bend over and spread wide – got a Nation to run.
The difference is that Trump has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. He never expected to win the presidency.
The Republican Party has no idea wtf they’re doing either. They’ve had how many years to concoct tax reform plans, health care plans. They’ve got bugger all. Cupboard’s bare.
Democrats are just as full of crap.
Best thing is if societal earthquake opens up a sinkhole and swallows both parties holus bolus. Good-bye, good riddance.
That’s why many refer to the Republican Party as the Stupid Party and the Democratic Party as the Evil Party.
I don’t know. Even though I think Mueller is gonna investigate many people in the swamp there, I doubt Trump will ever be charged with anything for the simple reason we’d already know about it. Trump himself is such a bombastic individual that he would have tweeted about it already. So. He would probably claim that he was ‘the best’ at it too LOL
And Shakespeare again
In the West, art in the late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Art Nouveau era was considered one of the primary sources of power, a kind of witchcraft creating power.
In Orthodoxy, a similar role is played by icons, but it is unlikely that miracles performed by icons can be called witchcraft. But the Western concept, originating from Giorgio Vasari, according to which icons are not art, but are “the subject of a cult”, whose artistic qualities is of no importance, should be recognized not just as a sad delusion, but as one of the ideological viruses that the West has not without success introduced into the Orthodox civilization with the aim of destroying it.
And the best proof of this is the West’s attitude to its own icons, if the Anglo-Saxon civilization can be considered part of the global West.
The artistic process in the European Union undoubtedly loses its potential and turns into a qualitatively different cultural phenomenon, but this issue can not be considered apart from Germany’s defeat in two world wars, its status of the occupied country and the split of Western Civilization, the symptoms of which were Brexit, Catalonia and Hillary’s destruction of a bipartisan political system in the US.
For the time being, let’s take as a basis the assertion that the artistic process in the so-called Anglo-Saxon civilization is an expression of the artistic process of the entire global West, and then one of these icons is undoubtedly the works of Shakespeare.
And if you consider that one of the reasons for the split of Western civilization is the attitude toward Islamism and Islam, it becomes clear the attention paid by the Western press to that rather strange fact that, as it follows from the recently declassified documents seized by the Navy Seals of the US Army in Pakistan during the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the rebellious CIA funds distributor in Afghanistan decided to challenge the global West in his youth, or even as a child, as a result of a visit to the Shakespeare Museum in Stratford-on-Avon, where the brilliant English playwright and poet began his earthly journey.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/osama-bin-laden-apos-hatred-160500368.html
Only he was a she, and she was Italian:
https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeares-Dark-Lady-Amelia-Bassano/dp/1445655241
Jim – you write:
Are there any like me out there who would like to see both parties tossed onto the garbage barge of history? Of course, to say that also means throwing out a cargo of terrible ideas and beliefs, not just two clown cars of personalities. Identity politics, zero interest rate policy, American Exceptionalism, endless debt, nation-building in foreign lands, FASB-157, sanctuary cities, Title IX coercion, racketeering in health care and higher ed, market interventions, ambiguous borders… is just some of the cargo that needs to be dumped overboard with both parties.
===================
Maybe this, as a replacement ?
A sense of the sacred – of the inviolate – of justice in the large frame:
In Paris, the indigenous leaders met the French ecology minister Nicolas Hulot – who moved from journalism to activism to politics and played a key role in the Paris Accord of 2015. He said the role of indigenous leaders was important, and not just at the Bonn talks. “They are perhaps the only people who can remind us how man has alienated himself from nature. They can bring a conscience and soul that modern society can aspire to,” he said…
Rivas – the quiet young man from Nicaragua – is underwhelmed. “All the death and destruction that came to our country came from Europe,” he said. “I sense people still have a superficial understanding of our message. What we want is to be able to continue our spiritual connection with the forest.”
https://firenewsfeed.com/news/692189
Hamlet, according to Dr. Martin Lings, author of “The Secret of Shakespeare”, for us is analogous of Christ, since the tragedy of Hamlet is the tragedy of the true heir of the kingdom of Danish, captured by the usurper Claudius, just as the prince of this world is the usurper of the world created by God the Father, and his heir and true monarch is Christ.
For the English in the time of Shakespeare, this was especially important, since then England had just survived the terrible war of the Red and White Roses, when the usurpers succeeded one another on the throne, plunging the country into a terrible bloodshed, and the question of a true monarch for the British really became a matter of life and death, for each one of them, not just for the courtiers and soldiers of the fighting armies of Lancaster and York.
Particularly it should be noted that this issue was originally “imprinted” in English culture in connection with the legend of King Arthur, who was the Christian king of the Celts, who fought the Anglo-Saxon pagans.
And the most important part of English culture is that Anglo Saxons becoming Christians began to associate themselves with their Celtic enemies, and this fundamental feature of English culture only intensified after the invasion of William the Conqueror, as he was associated with the Pope in the most direct way and the conquest of the Christian England by the Norman Duke, accompanied by the genocide of Christian York, was undoubtedly the first of the anti-Christian crusades, which soon became anti-Muslim as well, and quite naturally reached its climax in the Fourth Crusade.
The Flavian Christ story is Vespasian’s murderous mockery of Judea and her people. The Son of Man is obviously Titus. Hamlet’s connection to Christ is through the words of the Dark Lady speaking for her people:
“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?”
Janos, et al;
Many of us read the American Renaissance articles…some of us comment. Anyone in the readership have one of their comments selected for the favorite comments of the week?
Anybody?
Anybody?
Bueller?
Sometimes even a blind pig will find a truffle….
Why? Do suspect they’re only commending their inner coterie? I got one once.
Janos,
No, but I just got one….
Bravo then. May your corn grow tall, your daughters marry well, and your sons slay many enemies. Turn them onto Amren so they know who the enemies are.
Red pill blue pill white pill. They have a pill for everything don’t they? but wait there is no white pill is there, because if there were everyone would take one and we would be experiencing an American Renaissance. America will be great again because everyone would be white. Well not exactly again, but great for the first time anyway. That is almost as good.
Since everyone will be white all problems will go away and the world will be one of plenty for all where there is more of everything for everybody.
More of everything except for the need for racist trolls on Clusterfuck Nation which will go away entirely. As there will no longer be a need to corrupt dissent and dull the nations mind or to operate a honey tramp to find imagined lone wolf terrorists. With everyone white we will have a world of peace and no need for trolls.
The comment count by this time after a JHK article is posted shall only become 25 once the spooks leave but they will be good comments. The world of Graycenphil and Janos will have arrived but they will be out of work. The government troll contribution here will drop to zero.
Enjoy your truffle pig.
“Since everyone will be white all problems will go away and the world will be one of plenty for all where there is more of everything for everybody. ”
Dog,
A gross simplification. Argumentum ad Absurdum. Questions involving race or culture only address one of our existential issues, and an internal one at that.
Roiling international tensions, those at distance and in the future, are fodder for casual comment…. Racial/class issues, for those in the belly of the beast, are immediate, and may sound strident. Comments may mirror a sense of fear, loathing, and disenfranchisement…and for some, those fears are a daily reality.
Do you deny racial or class issues, or are you denigrating proffered solutions?
The boogieman/dogcatcher does exist…pretending he doesn’t serves no one well.
My complements to your cool rational response. I do not care for racism and will respond with venom anytime it is celebrated. I expected a scurrilous response. Instead I see something I should respond to with some thought.
Proffered solutions, exactly what are those. Can these be itemized and discussed? I doubt it. I do not think real solutions have been discussed at AR so prove me wrong. AR exists and thrives on hate and insecurity. I consider it populated by losers who want to blame other people for their problems. Losers who want to blame blacks for crimes who have never experienced crime themselves.
“Do you deny racial or class issues”
Lets see if I do.
It was 1982 or around that time. I had an old Burgundy Chevy and it was a Saturday morning. We were living in the South End of Seattle where traditionally blacks and other minorities
were forced to live by years of redlining.
I was washing the car which was parked at the curb in front of our house. I was doing something I usually don’t do, I was going barefoot. I wanted to keep my shoes dry.
As I was bending over the car trunk to soap it up I glanced up in the direction of the next door neighbors house on our left side. As I did I saw a black man 20s or so dart out of view behind the corner of the house. It was as if he did not want me to see him. It was odd and I went on high alert mentally. But I was careful not to betray that I had noticed him and kept on soaping.
I kept working but I was watching both houses, ours and the neighbors as hard as I was working, yet I was careful not to make it look like I was looking hard in that direction at all. A few minutes went by and then it all happened.
I looked up and saw Mrs. Dog walking across the living room in the direction of our bedroom carrying our baby son. Unknown to her but not to me since he was out of sight to her nut not me the black man was sliding through a kitchen window that he had pulled open. The end of the far living room wall opened into a passageway through which I could see into the kitchen.
I started running at the house. I could run through the garage and through a door that went into the kitchen or through the front. Halfway across the living room going into the direction of the bedroom where Mrs.Dog was with my son he saw me running at him through the front window. He turned around and ran back to through kitchen and dove through the already open kitchen window. It was a dive like someone would take into water but bare ground was on the other side. I was amazed he was not hurt and I diverted my run along the side of the house into our back yard where the would be rapist jumped the fence into the neighbors yard. I followed him.
Through and over three fenced yards I chased him and I was for sure the faster runner. The problem was I was barefoot and once the chase returned to the front of the houses and down the bare pavement of the street I was having trouble with keeping up as tried to grab his T-shirt from the back. Twice I swiped at him trying to grab it and the second time he felt my hand slide down his back. As I did this I said. ‘I catch you nigger I am going to kill you.’ At that point I knew I was not going to get him and gave up the chase. I was in front of the Victory Grocery at the time. Then I went home and called the police.
The police figured he lived in one of three nearby houses they knew about and explained that a small number of black men were responsible for most of the local area crime. Everybody else was law abiding no matter what their color.
I was given a card to call the officer I was talking to should I ever see this pig again. I was told I could do whatever I wanted to him before I called. This was more than twenty years ago and I doubt the Seattle police still have the same vigilante friendly un-official policy.
A couple months later I did see him again while I was driving a few blocks away from home. I locked up my brakes and threw my car into park. The car screamed to a stop. I left my car smack in the middle of the road. I did not care about the traffic problem I was causing and Igave chase for about three blocks across neighborhood front lawns. Sadly for me he had too much of a head start on me but I had the satisfaction of seeing him totally scared shitless. The car squealing to a stop must have been dramatic.
I doubt any of you reading this have gone through anything like this. I would have killed this nigger had I caught him. Do I regret not catching him? Yes I do. I would have killed him for trying to rape my wife while I was washing my car. My baby son perhaps thrown on the floor or perhaps he would have held a knife to his neck to keep her quiet while he did his thing.
I would have killed him not because he was black but because of who he was.
Boogiemen/dogcatchers do exist. Some are black and some are white and some are even yellow. This particular asshole just happened to be black and very very lucky I did not have my shoes on that Saturday morning.
I don’t expect anybody will be complaining about me using the N-word. If you have a problem with it, go fuck yourself, niggers can be black or white in my book.
The link did not work:
https://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/Z_9XDjbzrFXkBC8BIqfQig/o.jpg
Dog,
Thank you for your effort in this long and very interesting post. Predators come in all shapes, sizes and colors. It is a pity that blacks seem to be represented disproportionately in this grouping. The use of the “N word of infamy” in the heat of a struggle is akin to curses which are usually used otherwise (most usually “motherfucker”)…certainly not a sign of animus directed towards anyone but the antagonist.
Having been in your situation maybe a hundred times (chasing a suspect on foot), I understand your actions without qualification.
In Oakland, using the “N” word (being caught using it) was a week off without pay and a letter of reprimand in your file…for the first offense. The term “motherfucker” was acceptable, and enjoyed common usage.
Generation Zyklon fights back against the slandering and dispossession of Whites by people like this maniac cat lady and her male allies (people like you).
https://dailystormer.ws/minnesota-high-schoolers-forced-to-endure-intensive-anti-white-indoctrination-course/
Remember Madiba was in favor of White genocide and “Dr” King a sex addict and communist.
Your Gods are Trash.
You are not the only one who would like to see the two political parties on the scrap heap of history. Or to satisfy my sense of justice, to burn in the fires of hell.
If you want to clean up this country’s political parties, clean up our corrupt campaign finance system. Starting with the appalling ‘Citizens United’ decision. And moving on to the appalling concept that corporations have the same ‘rights’ as flesh-and-blood people.
I’ll believe Corporations are people as soon as we throw a corporation into prison for violating the law, or draft a corporation into fighting overseas for our country. The Koch Brothers and Wells Fargo can go sodomize themselves, thank you.
well said
The two political parties are on the scrap heap of history, it is the electorate who provides the intensive care life support. See Graycenphil above who votes for good candidates!
When someone is lying to you does it really matter if you like or dislike the lie? In the United States is certainly does, with the added bonus of hating someone who prefers a different lie.
Walter B, you are on a roll this week.
wm
” Are there any like me out there who would like to see both parties tossed onto the garbage barge of history? ”
Not here.
I’m sure both parties are irrelevant.
Replace them with what, exactly ? The I.W.W . ? The N.S.D.A.P. ?
The Kuomintang ? Maybe we need to dig up , and resurrect , some Whigs ?
Nations of this size ( i.e. Russia, China , Brazil ) have never been good places to live .
I doubt a change of parties is going to change that in any noticeable way.
Replace them with peace and love and a philosophy of life based on understanding limits. Let there be an enduring rebellion against evil to replace our corrupt parties which both came over time to sanction evil.
You imply that what we have is the best possible arrangement and that is wrong. There are better alternatives than the existing arrangement. You lack courage and accept the condition of the world as it is spreading fear to get others to go along with you. That is sad.
“I doubt a change of parties is going to change that in any noticeable way.”
You can enjoy eating the same shit sandwich every day if you wish but I do not have to share in your depressed vision.
“Replace them with peace and love and a philosophy of life based on understanding limits. Let there be an enduring rebellion against evil to replace our corrupt parties which both came over time to sanction evil.
Bad Dog,
The sixties are calling…they want their comment back….
Kesa speaks the truth. She understands human nature. I suspect that you have been treated with too much kindness…and it has effected your worldview. A few weeks living under a bridge, a stray in a strange place, would straighten you right out…but I would not wish that on you.
Sorry
“I suspect that you have been treated with too much kindness…and it has effected your worldview. A few weeks living under a bridge, a stray in a strange place, would straighten you right out…but I would not wish that on you.”
Had my most recent post (here existed before you wrote this you would not have accused me of being naive and having lived a sheltered live. No apology is necessary but one would be accepted.
Returning to my point.
“You can enjoy eating the same shit sandwich every day if you wish but I do not have to share in your depressed visions.”
Considering how the USA military machine has metastasized into the real Evil Empire, methinks it would have been far better if the tyrant Lincoln had followed the Constitution and allowed the South to peacefully secede.
Well, ladies and germs;
The number of US casualties on D-Day, on Omaha Beach, are listed as approximately 2000 wounded or killed. The number of citizens shot in Chicago, to date for 2017…3181 killed or wounded.
“You can enjoy eating the same shit sandwich every day if you wish but I do not have to share in your depressed vision.”~ Dog
Depressed vision? How can you ignore History and our cultural issues? Why do you continue to impugn those who do not”?
That was messed up. You took me totally out of context and hand-picked a particular example to discount what I wrote. Omaha beach and Chicago however are not comparable.
I do not ignore history or cultural issues, I just see the bigger picture.
Dog,
I apologize for my lack of clarity if misunderstood. What is the bigger picture? Humanity will not change, and we will not enjoy the future in harmony…what then is to see?
You know, I respect dogs. They have their own culture. A dog that is not insane will not attack another member of his pack…there are rules of “civility” among dogs. A dog with his snout in a bowl of food, even a minor member of a pack, will not be displaced by the alphas.
Humans, not so much…. The Chicago/Omaha Beach juxtaposition showcases only in that Omaha Beach was a meat grinder, during war, and had fewer casualties than a ghetto culture at peace…by a wide factor. Our culture is riddled with these cancerous cells, filled with the same predator mindset that you experienced. What is the “big picture”?
I would like to understand your viewpoint.
When does the DOW collapse?
Malthuss,
In a statement to Congress, a spokesman for the JCS opined that the only way to disarm North Korea, would be with a massive…ground invasion.
This ground invasion would be necessary to find all the Nukes. I would suggest that everyone of them could then be found and counted by observing and counting the mushroom clouds.
THIS would precipitate…”volatility”…perhaps a collapse in the DOW.
On a personal note…What the fuck are they thinking? They are probably sending a message to China. China does not want us on their doorstep. Dialog with Little Kim? Fuggedaboutit….
The comment section this weekend – and many other times – seems to be a discussion between idealists of opposing philosophies. I offer a third side, that of the cynics.
We’d all like a safe, pleasant world. But humans aren’t wired for that. We have a nasty, cruel and murderous side that more than offsets the kind and gentle parts of our being.
Saying all we have to do is be more understanding is very naive. We’ve had 10,000 years of civilizations in various stages of development, and we have not changed our psyche. I fear that we are unable to change given our current genetic make-up.
There’s only two ways we can change to become a more viable species. The first way is to wait for nature to take its course through evolution. Unfortunately, that probably takes a long time and we don’t have that much time left. And there’s no guarantee that the evolutionary changes would be beneficial.
The only other way is for us to effect our own evolution. We are on the verge of being able to do that. Guided evolution could be very beneficial. But we’d have to be aware of our negative side influencing our choices.
As far as I’m concerned, to discuss politics is a waste of time because nothing s going to change unless we do.
As far as I’m concerned, to discuss politics is a waste of time because nothing s going to change unless we do.
Unless someone learns something from the discussion.
As long as what someone learns is the truth.
I CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH…!
In the meantime, let people live with people like themselves: the best prescription for peace. Diversity kills. And people in favor of it are murderers.
You are too absolutist. Blanket statements like yours are rarely 100% accurate. I’m sure that some diversity is fine; maybe not to the extent as currently practiced in the USA – because that viewpoint is allowed too extreme.
The deplorable white voters’ good sense to reject excessive diversity is what got Trump elected. Given Trump’s invective to rescind the Diversity Immigration lottery, (I’ll bet over 90% had never heard of it), why doesn’t he go all the way and urge Congress to kill Ted Kennedy’s Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 before it’s too late?
Of course it isn’t, just as some 15 yr olds could marry well or drive responsibly. But we go on averages and these aren’t good ideas. Nor is the mixing of peoples. You know this very well or would if you could look at yourself. The more diverse we are, the weaker White America is, and the weaker We are, the stronger you are.
Isn’t that more like it, buddy?
A Nation is something organic, a body as it were. The Culture is the mind. One mind per body, right? Just so, one and ONLY ONE culture per nation.
Bill, your position assumes that we are in control. The “realities” that we are presented are fake, scripted, and contrived. They are often times programmed for us decades and decades in advance. Some of the cultural and political software was written a century and more ago. We are simply executing code, completely blind.
And then there is the cosmological influence on our psyche:
Remembering the End of the World: https://youtu.be/oophJNlP-fk?t=28s
Even if we are controlled by an evil elite going back thousands of years, and if they are human, that proves my point ( I haven’t watched the video).
Bill, look at how long it took humanity to free itself from Vespasian’s cruel joke and PsyOps project better known as the Gospels. There are people today still under its spell. There are Jews today who believe “Josephus Flavius” was an actual person and historian. The people who fall into these psycho-political traps are not evil people. They are simply stupid, ignorant, naive, and misguided.
Maybe if we understand that the psychopaths always paddle the political boat towards centralization, maybe we can then mount a defense against them. But we never give these things any thought. Even though we have been warned: https://mises.org/library/what-samuel-said-about-solomon
You say that political discussions are useless. I disagree. Political discussions can flesh out political coalitions and inspire organized thought and awareness among us.
There is no evidence that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt btw. Or for any mass migration thru the Sinai. Most of the Old Testament is a clever fraud of Babylonian stories rewritten by a group bound and determined to someday gain global domination.
The Pyramids were built by a small group of Professional Builders backed by mass and voluntary seasonal labor by the Egyptian faithful.
The TaNaKh doesn’t speak of the Pyramids, it speaks of two cities that were built by the Hebrews using mud bricks.
“There is no evidence that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt…”
What was Joseph doing there?
What Samuel Said about Solomon
by Frank Chodorov
“In those days,” we are told in Judges 17:6, “there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
To be able to do that which is right in one’s own eyes is to be free, and freedom was the way of life among the Israelites before the coming of the kings. Yet, they were not without government; they were not lacking in those social controls that are the essence of government. The economy of the tribesmen demanded of the individual that he adjust himself to cooperative and regularized procedures; a man who indulged his caprice when the tribe was on the march in search of grazing land would be courting disaster; it was a case of hold together or die.
Tradition supplemented necessity in the orderly arrangement of life, for the tradition grew out of experience by the trial-and-error method and had proved itself beneficial. The laws of custom were sanctified because violation of them carried its own penalties, not only to the individual, but also to the group.
It was a conservative society; adherence to proven principles was the only way by which the pursuit of happiness could be furthered. That which was “right” in the tribesman’s eyes was “right” by custom, tradition and the laws of Yahweh, to the enumeration of which the Old Testament, before the Book of Joshua, devoted much space. Freedom is not license.
Nor was there lack of leadership before the coming of the kings. Someone had to plan strategy and improvise tactics for the wars the tribesmen engaged in during their march to the Promised Land, and someone had to adjudicate disputes so as to prevent the chaos of internecine struggles. So came the judges, men and women esteemed for their wisdom and integrity, the leaders provided by nature for the instruction of the rank and file.
The evidence leads to the conclusion that these judges ruled by natural selection and common consent, much like the chiefs of American Indian tribes. It was agreed that the authority of the judges was sanctified by God, but the proof of their anointment was the manner in which they exercised authority. They were leaders by virtue of their proven gift of leadership.
The important thing about the rule of the judges is that their office was not endowed with the power of coercion. “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” meant that no man was compelled to do otherwise; and, since “in those days there was no king in Israel,” it must be presumed that there was no constabulary to enforce rules of behavior. The sole enforcement agency upon which the authority of the judges rested was public opinion. “So said Yahweh” had the force of “so say we all.”
According to one computation, this kind of government lasted about four centuries — a period, incidentally, comparable to the duration of the Roman republic. The manner of its termination is recorded in the First Book of Samuel (chapter eight), where it is told that the elders of the tribes came to the last of the judges and demanded that he set a king over them. The background of this agitation for a basic constitutional reform is worth noting.
The nomads had by this time settled down in the hills surrounding Canaan, sheep herding was giving way to agriculture, land tenure had achieved an importance it did not have during the migrations. Trading, capital accumulations and financial transactions had entered their way of life.
Their economy had changed. To add to their new outlook was the vision of great wealth in the valleys; there, the pomp and circumstance of Baal worship in glittering temples compared favorably in their eyes with the austerity that Yahweh imposed on them, and there, all manner of private and public problems were settled out of hand by omniscient and omnipotent royal establishments, relieving the populace of rigorous self-discipline. It all looked good.
The immediate occasion for the revolutionary demand was what we would today call an emergency. In fact, there were two emergencies. In foreign affairs things were going badly for Israel; the Philistines had not only beaten them roundly in battle, but also made off with the sacred ark of the covenant.
On the domestic front, they had lost faith in their leadership. The two sons of Samuel, whom he had appointed as assistants, did not live up to the high standards of their office; they had “turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.”
Samuel seems to have been a political scientist of the first water, all the more remarkable in that he had no books to go by, but only his wisdom and his observation of kingship in operation. So that, when the elders said “make us a king to judge us like all the nations,” he was displeased. The story says that he took the matter up with Yahweh, who assured him that nothing could be done about saving the Israelites from themselves, since they had given up on first principles.
It was because they had forsaken the rigorous tradition of their forefathers, with its insistence on self-reliance and personal integrity, that they had lost the victorious touch that carried them from Egypt to the outskirts of the Promised Land. The breakdown of the judge system could be traced to the same lack of self-discipline. Therefore, said Yahweh, give them what they ask for, but as a parting shot you might “shew them the manner of the king that shall rule over them”; and tell them also that when they realize their mistake, it will be too late to regain freedom: “The Lord will not hear you in that day.”
Ye Shall Be Servants
So Samuel outlined the order of things under a king. First, there will be conscription, replacing the system of voluntarism that had served the tribesmen well throughout their peregrinations, and the conscription will not be confined to military service but will include service in the king’s household. What’s more, women too will be subject to involuntary servitude. Then, “he will appoint his captains over thousands and captains over fifties.”
The term “captain” is ambiguous, referring sometimes to men of war, sometimes to what we would call nobles, sometimes (by the kind of work assigned to them) to bureaucrats; it was in the reigns of David and Solomon that “captain” took on many meanings.
And, continued Samuel, the king will take from you the best of your lands “and give them to his servants,” thus establishing a landed aristocracy, which the laws of Moses clearly forbade. What’s more, for the upkeep of his establishment “he will take a tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards”; apparently, compulsory taxation was new among the Israelites. To top it all off, “ye shall be his servants.”
Death to the Defier
But the elders were obdurate in their demand for political authority. One could go behind the returns and make out a case against these revolutionists; perhaps they constituted a newly risen landowning class, and hoped to solidify their position under a kingship. More likely, fear had entered their hearts, as is usually the case when a people accustomed to success are faced with adversity, and they were quite willing to swap freedom for the promise of security under subservience.
In any event, Samuel anointed Saul. From the very beginning of the royal establishment, the troubles of Israel multiplied. There was the usual spate of wars with the Philistines, with varying degrees of success, and internal dissension, which was rare in the experience of the tribesmen, became common. Some followed Saul, others revolted against his rule; more exactly, they resisted the establishment of those institutions that Samuel had warned them would come with a king.
But, as Samuel said, there was no way of regaining freedom once the state had made its appearance, and the judge was soon on the lookout for a new deliverer. He sought out David, but it is significant that the new king, though anointed by Samuel, had to fight his way to power; he came to the throne on the wings of what we would call a revolution. The struggle for power, embellished with moral platitudes and social-sounding whereases, had seeped into the Israelite way of life.
There is a story within the story of David’s accession that is indeed a lesson in political science. The story is that a young soldier who brought David the news of Saul’s death — hoping that this would be pleasing to David, whose life Saul had been after — confessed that he had had a part in dispatching the king, and that for his pains David had the soldier put to death. His reason for the execution was that the soldier had defied the office of kingship; it was a crime for an individual citizen to lay hands on the anointed.
It Took 40 Years
It is the way of political power to become in itself, regardless of the person who wields it, a shrine for public worship. In modern times, we are quick to “throw the rascals out,” but it never occurs to us that rascality is imbedded in the office or that the power invested in it might make a rascal of an honest man.
Though the people of Israel had asked for a king, the spirit of freedom did not depart from them immediately upon the granting of their wish, and Saul never really set the kingship on a solid basis. It takes time for the myth of authority to gain general acceptance. David, the second king, did better, for he had forty years in which to get the tribesmen in line with the new institution; a second generation had come to maturity during his reign and to them the exploits of royalty were “modern,” real and vibrant, while the freedom of their forefathers sank into the limbo of a fairy tale.
Even so, something of the past hung on, and David had to contend with frequent insurrections and, at the end, with a war of succession. He did succeed, as we learn from the Second Book of Samuel, in setting up the necessary framework for the functioning of a successful state, that is, in surrounding the kingship with a supporting caste of “mighty men,” analogous to what we would today call a privileged class, and with a group of efficient “servants” whose functions correspond with those of latter-day bureaucrats. In that way he facilitated the consolidation of power under Solomon.
The Saul-David-Solomon story is illustrative of the gestation of the state. At first, an aspiring chieftain fights his way to ascendancy as a lone wolf, knocking off rivals, and concentrates in himself all the power he can lay his hands on. This method has merit only in so far as the area of his sovereignty is limited to personal supervision. Beyond that, it proves to be quite inefficacious, even precarious.
As his quest for power reaches beyond his purview, as it always does, he finds it necessary to delegate some of his power to, and share his prerogatives with, a supporting oligarchy — military, ecclesiastical (or intellectual) and, in time, commercial or industrial groups — that lend themselves to his purpose in return for the special privileges he grants them. They serve as a moat to his castle.
In addition to these favored blocs, he must surround his citadel with a class of well-paid “servants” skilled in taking care of the details of his sovereignty, so that it can function with the least amount of friction.
The state is not, as most political scientists would make it, an inanimate thing; it consists of people, human beings, each of whom operates under an inner compulsion to get the most out of life with the least expenditure of labor. They differ from other human beings only in the fact that they have chosen (because they believe it to be easier) the political or predatory means of satisfying their desires, rather than the economic or productive means.
The fiction that the state is an impersonal institution, something society constructs for its own benefit, serves to hide, even from its members, the nature of its composition.
Hiram and the WPA
The wisdom of Solomon was demonstrated in his capacity for consolidating state power. In the first place, the underpinning of his reign was soundly constructed, for we are told that his captains and his princes and his priests and servants, the privileged classes, “lacked nothing.”
He bought off possible opposition. Then he avoided to a considerable degree the costly and disruptive wars of his predecessors, and resorted to diplomatic bribery to bring under his sway the petty and potentially troublesome kings on the perimeter of his domain. His principal concern was in the management of internal affairs, in getting a good hold on his people by embellishing the myth of authority. The temple he built was a stroke of political genius, for it covered the kingship with an aura of omnipotence; so did the walled cities and the navy he built.
These programs brought him much public acclaim and accomplished the primary political purpose, that of giving the state the character of a doer of great social things. This is the prerequisite of maintaining power over the people.
These public works projects were financed on credit advanced by Hiram, King of Tyre, who incidentally did the work and employed slaves. (This form of exploitation was applicable under Hebrew law to foreigners only.) There is also a hint that Solomon exacted tribute from neighboring princes. But, as to taxation, we learn nothing until we come to Second Chronicles (chapter ten), which deals with the coronation of his son, Rehoboam.
There it is told that “all Israel” pleaded with the new king thus: “Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease thou somewhat the grievous servitude of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee.”
It was, then, by heavy taxes that the State of Israel attained the apex of its glory under Solomon. Its opulence reflected the poverty of the people. And so it must be. Society, it should be kept in mind, is a group of people who cooperate with one another in order that they may severally and individually improve their circumstances, and the techniques by which society achieves its purpose are production and exchange.
There is no other way by which society can thrive. Whatever deprives the members of society of the fruits of their labors is a deterrent of the human purpose that brought them together; it is a desocializing force. And among the devices that men have invented to defeat the ends of society, none is more devastating than compulsory taxation, because it is a constant drain of their property, tending to increase as they show more and more enterprise.
The state, on the other hand, thrives on what it can exact of society; its temples are built with taxes. Its bureaucracy or enforcement agency grows in size and arrogance by the same means. And it is with taxes that the state buys the support of those who might otherwise turn against it. The more taxes, the richer the state and the poorer the people; the more taxes, the stronger the state and the weaker the people. The interests of the two institutions are diametrically in opposition.
The Yoke Is Heavy
Resistance to the state diminishes in the degree of its confiscations, and ultimately, when the tax load becomes a yoke, subservience to the state becomes the necessary way of life.
The designation of taxation as a yoke is a nice piece of biblical directness. A yoke is worn by an ox, a beast of burden, which by nature is incapable of claiming a property right in the products of its labor.
It follows that when a human being is deprived of that right, his status approximates that of an ox, and if taxation takes all he produces beyond that needed to sustain life (the wages of an ox), it can rightly be called a yoke. The Israelites who pleaded with Rehoboam to lower the tax load that Solomon (the state) had put on them were quite literal.
The story goes on to say that Rehoboam rejected the plea of “all Israel,” that he in fact promised them an increase in taxes. Then it tells of a revolt against taxes by the people of Judah, a political subdivision that periodically rejected the suzerainty of Jerusalem: when Hadoram, Rehoboam’s chief collector of tribute, made his rounds among them, they so “stoned him with stones, that he died.”
The incident points out another lesson in political science, namely, that the state never achieves complete ascendancy over society (if it did, society would disintegrate and the state would collapse from lack of nutrition), and that there are always critics and rebels.
There were many kings after Solomon in Israel, and all of them were plagued with prophets who called upon the people to return to first principles. In Second Chronicles it says, “Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.”
This article originally appeared in Faith & Freedom, September 1956.
Topics:
Big Government [2]
World History [3]
Austrian School:
Entrepreneurship [4]
Source URL: https://mises.org/library/what-samuel-said-about-solomon
Links
[1] https://mises.org/profile/frank-chodorov
[2] https://mises.org/topics/big-government
[3] https://mises.org/topics/world-history
[4] https://mises.org/austrian-school/entrepreneurship
The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI), often referred to as the Mises Institute, is a tax-exempt organization located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. It is named after Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises
Before rushing into Austrian school, why wouldn’t you investigate the American School, also known as the National System.
The American School included three cardinal policy points:
Support industry: The advocacy of protectionism, and opposition to free trade – particularly for the protection of “infant industries” and those facing import competition from abroad. Examples: Tariff Act of 1789, Tariff Act of 1816 and Morrill Tariff
Create physical infrastructure: Government finance of internal improvements to speed commerce and develop industry. This involved the regulation of privately held infrastructure, to ensure that it meets the nation’s needs. Examples: Cumberland Road and Union Pacific Railroad
Create financial infrastructure: A government sponsored National Bank to issue currency and encourage commerce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_(economics)
Make America Great Again!
Why should I?
I’m totally against the gov mafia and all its projects from A to Z. I don’t give a shit about industry, or infrastructure, or finance, etc. It is all cleverly disguised theft and slavery. I don’t care to sponsor and subside any of it.
..sponsor and subsidize..
I’m totally against the gov mafia and all its projects from A to Z.
You should tell it to 911 operator next time you have an emergency.
Private health care can do the same and probably better. Some real competition wouldn’t hurt bringing costs and efficiency to the gov mafia protected monopoly that is the medical profession.
Pharaoh believed Joseph’s vision of Seven Years of Famine and entrusted him to prepare Egypt for it. Thus a grain tax was levied or increased that the Public granaries would be ready. But when the Famine came, Joe charged the People for their own grain. And when they had given all that they had just to eat, they had to sell themselves into slavery just to survive.
And then he invited his Kin come down and feed of the substance of the Egyptian People. Thankfully, a great Pharaoh arose, one who “knew not Joseph” and humbled these evil people.
I know that you know better than to copy and paste this crap, but you do anyway. You’re just a despicable creep.
In other words, there is no possible defense of Joseph. He was unspeakably Evil.
Joseph was made second to Pharaoh because he saved Egypt. Joseph doesn’t need a defense from the likes you. We already know you prejudged everyone not white guilty of every “crime” imaginable and unimaginable.
Why didn’t he just let them all starve to death?
Whoops, I’m sorry. I kind of fell asleep. We’re you saying something?
The Second Oldest Profession
Last Monday, American version of 3d Reich Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_M%C3%BCller_(Gestapo) – charged several employees of Trump’s election campaign, including Manafort, the head of the campaign.
And that this would happen was known on the evening of Friday, despite the fact that the envelope with charges was sealed by the judge of a secret court and the very fact that this event took place was of a highest level of clearance.
This is done in order to arrange hype in the media about the accusations before they are presented, which gives room for imagination to well paid professionals of the second (and perhaps the first) oldest profession.
This week it turned out that the charges against Manafort, threatening him with 80 years of imprisonment, are built on sand, but the number of versions about his guilt, published in the period from Friday to Wednesday demanded their storage under reinforced against toxic radiation concrete dome of Chernobyl.
And from this point of view it is useful to recall that the leakage is one of the favorite types of political weaponry of Hillary Clinton. In particular, the first months of Trump’s presidency were marked by the struggle for the appointment of a special prosecutor: Hillary through the front men of the Deep State demanded an investigation of Trump’s links with the Russians, and Trump demanded an investigation into the wiretapping of his campaign by the Obama administration = the Hillary Clinton administration.
And Trump’s advisers are so used to calling things by their realnames, that they always say things out loud in public, calling Hillary “President Clinton”. And then Hillary won by organizing a proper leak: the manipulative director of the FBI, Comey, provoked President Trump into a frank conversation, wrote it down, classified it and immediately leaked it to the journalists as a top secret material that generated the necessary scandal for the allegations against Manafort, which actually became the basis for the appointment of the special prosecutor Mueller.
And Trump tried to negotiate with Hillary, but she screwed him, using negotiations to win time necessary to derail Trump’s plans to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her crimes.
Since then, Trump, taught by bitter experience, managed to turn the chessboard 180 degrees, proving that the creation of the so-called Trump Russian Dossier was paid by Hillary Clinton, and since the official task of Mueller is to investigate Russia’s interference in the American elections, and today all Clintonoids are forced to explain what from the point of view of such interference hacking servers of Hillary by Russian hackers is different from the fabrication by someone in the Medvedev’s government of phony dossier on Trump.
While The Swamp, and its associated players and programs stink to high heaven, the declared jihad/war against Christians goes on, and with increasing hatred and intensity:
https://www.ksat.com/news/shooting-sutherland-springs-church-gunfire-mass-shooting-airlife
Why has the terrorist/mass murderer not been identified yet?
Betting this is not a Baptist.
I call again for a Federal law specifically to deter terrorists and mass murderers, by providing punishment and avenging that will dissuade most of the bestial scum who perpetrate these kinds of acts.
(Hint: the carcass gets defiled and the whole immediate family – Ma & Pa, the spouse and the kids all get brokered into the equation.)
*Elrond need not castigate me again, as I know he thinks me an “unshaved chimp” for believing that Draconian measures are now called for to prevent, deter and, yes, to punish for crimes against humanity.
Just remember that capital punishment is the manner in which society rids itself of cancer cells.
Every Church service needs to have an armed Deacon. Festus in Gun Smoke was a Deacon perhaps. Many good tough guys were.
Not to worry. Everyone is sending their “thoughts and prayers”, so that should solve the problem.
https://dailystormer.ws/its-okay-to-be-white/
Marketing genius. The perfect meme for low voltage American normies. Beyond that, it provokes paroxysms of rage from Leftists, thus it has great ability to Awaken Whites.
This is the counter to Black Lives Matter.
Don’t call them Coons – they’re Ringtailed Handwashers. From the Harrows of Spring by JHK. The ones out her in WA are of a different race from those in MA. Bigger and a bit less playful. They seem to have some real strength in their little hands and jaws: they tore a Tupperware dish into shreds the other night. They enjoy such mischief it seems.
I was watching one of those political gabfests today — I think it was Face the Nation — the one hosted by Chuck Todd — Eugene Robinson and Peggy Noonan were guests, smug sonabitches wreaking of condescension; its pretty clear they think they’ve got Trump on the run and will be getting rid of him soon via Muellers investigation. They could hardly contain the glee they felt, not a word about misconduct by H Clinton or any Democrats. We’ll never get rid of these Swamp Creatures as they’re too deeply entrenched.
It looks like the big revolution to upend the country and topple President Trump on Nov 4 fizzled out. What a bunch of wusses these modern day leftist revolutionaries turn out to be, not a two fisted Joe Hill, Big Bill Haywood or Jack London amongst the lot of them. (But there might be a Leon Czolgosz in that rabble)
What did ee cummings call western red toadies in Moscow in the 30s, running flak for the commies: unmen, unpeople.
brh
ah, brh, you wisdom transcend all apace and time…..
you one swamp creatures extraordinarily corrupt…even beyond standard set by Beijing and Riyadh!!!!
that ok.
let not you heart be troubled.
may God be with you.
-onehunglo
The TaNaKh doesn’t speak of the Pyramids – akmofo
========
I can confirm this much: Of the 68% of the Old Testament that I have read thus far there has been NO mention of any pyramids.
Could it be that the pyramids were already old when the Old Testament was young?
Before Genesis?
These media Mandarins, the Networks out of New York, they think they own the country. They decide who’s going to be president, not voters. What they’re telling the 66 million citizens who voted for Trump is “You stupid sons of bitches out in Dogpatch flyover country, you thinks your vote matters? Think again, Suckers!” These smarmy, smug, elitist, deceitful, mendacious, lying POS using their agit/prop techniques honed over a half century to bring down a sitting President!
brh
” Replace them with peace and love and a philosophy of life based on understanding limits. ”
That’s theology , for which ideology has always been , and always will be , a second – rate substitute.
Assuming that a world made by hand is our future , then it doesn’t take psychic powers to see that a world made by hand is going to be a religious world.
The current secularism will either be as incongruous as a cockroach on a wedding cake , or , it will appear as the most fantastical of superstitions , Fare for children and lunatics .
One who genuinely wants to work toward a constructive and practical future , then , would be taking a hard look at the alternatives available in theology , and then proceed accordingly.
But you see scarce any of that here.
You have the crowd that glibly assumes and asserts that the plastic and two-dimensional ideologies of our air-conditioned ivory towers will work just as well , and be just as relevant to , a world where, for example, head colds are commonly lethal , and at least one in three women dies in childbirth.
And then you have the would-be neo-pagans — I say , ” would-be ”
because it is hard to believe that they really take Zeus or Horus seriously, or the “Buddhists ” who won’t admit they are pagans , which genuine Buddhists readily admit. —
Who apparently piss on the Christian – Islamic tradition because ……err……..because it is Christian or Islamic.
Like those who thumb their nose at Western civilization , but can’t really tell you how Animistic , cannibalistic , aboriginal cultures are supposed to be an improvement.
” ….a philosophy of life based on understanding limits. ”
by the way , I have ONLY ever encountered a fundamental premise of limits in theology.
NEVER have I encountered it in any ideology , except that they mention limits — in passing — briefly — and then hurry on to laying out their Xmas wish list of all the changes they are going to make .
” You imply that what we have is the best possible arrangement and that is wrong. There are better alternatives than the existing arrangement. ”
I imply ? I suppose one could get that impression from such a short post. So i’ll elaborate.
Near as I can tell, ” what we have is the best possible arrangement ” is what most people here actually think.
For some , the heroes of the narrative are Martin Luther and Thomas Jefferson.
For others, the heroes are Vladimir Lenin and those evolutionary tinkerers who can afford $500 , 000 – sex changes and thus presumably represent the proletariat somehow.
For still others , the heroes are Margaret Sanger and Benito Mussolini. .
In any case , all believe the past 500 years of revolution represent some sort of political and social progress, a positive crusade.
i seem to be alone ( ? ) in thinking that entire narrative is bullshit.
In my view , in brief , the sum outcome of all these revolutions, regardless of flavor, is that limits were disposed of for the ruling class.
The aristocracy disposed of whatever obligations and limitations they had.
Certainly the lives of peasants have improved over the past 500 years , BUT BECAUSE they got bubble gum , air conditioning , and indoor plumbing.
They didn’t get bubble gum , air conditioning , and indoor plumbing , from any revolution.
And , as often as not , they got bubble gum , air conditioning , and indoor plumbing , from some “deplorable ” peasant hobbyist looking to make a buck . It was as prosaic as that.
Nothing to make a propagandistic Disney movie about.
Unfortunately , the tinkering of hobbyists has also imposed on the peasantry degradations and usurpations that would have shocked a slave of 200 years ago , and which Stalin or Mao could not even have dreamed of in their wildest fantasies.
A common theme of this blog is that the world of the future will be one where political , social, and economic relations are primarily local and personal.
— And God bless ( though , bizarrely , without God ) the U.S.A.
As if a continent – spanning centralized heterogeneous empire is likely to be reconciled with this , ” All politics is local ” ordering of things.
As if an elephant can just as well live like a Hummingbird.
Never mind that it didn’t work for the Athenian or Roman Republics.
Never mind that Russia and China have always been shit holes , except for Patricians , soldiers , and prison guards.
To think in glowing terms of the United States , and to think in disparaging terms of , say , the Principality of Anhalt – Zerbst , IS to think that THIS is the best possible arrangement , and that there are no real alternatives .
” You lack courage and accept the condition of the world as it is spreading fear to get others to go along with you. ”
I think a legitimate and sincere accounting of the body count would show that you are far less likely to be tortured or murdered by cowards who accept the world as it is , very likely to be tortured or murdered by idealistic revolutionaries.
As for spreading fear to get others to go along with you ; in my experience you have to dig pretty deep into library stacks to even find copies of the “evil” scribblings of , for example , Martin Luther’s contemporary detractors , or , for example, Loyalists in the American Revolution.
I dare say that 99 out of 100 American college graduates cannot even NAME a single American Loyalist , much less give you a book report on their peer pressure and fear -mongering propoganda.
” You can enjoy eating the same shit sandwich every day if you wish but I do not have to share in your depressed vision. ”
I think a continent – spanning centralized heterogeneous United States empire , like a Mandarin China , is a depressing vision.
That , or the wishful thinking of children.
By the way, I think we are eating shit sandwiches every day whether we wish it or no.
” Replace them with peace and love and a philosophy of life based on understanding limits. ”
One of the phrases that gets kicked around here is that we live in a culture Where anything goes and nothing matters.
My statement is not theological it ontological.
Modern man assassinated god (though you are right he may rise from the dead when things go to shit). With this assassination men took on duties and privileges formerly reserved for god. The determination of morality was one of these duties. Deciding that anything goes and nothing matters was the wrong and intensely shallow knee-jerk response.
A proper response was that nothing should go unless determined to be in our best interest and that things really do matter and that they matter very much. No creative syntheses is reached by permitting everything and saying everything goes. Order and a world fit for men must be constructed from a morality and from guiding principles worked out by mankind in a continual struggle for unity in a balance between the tension of revolt and compliance with our world. This is what I mean by a life based on understanding limits.
“Near as I can tell, ” what we have is the best possible arrangement ” is what most people here actually think.”
Such a petty bourgeois parochial attitude should not be burning our retinas. There are people in need simple as that. The future is now.
There has been some political and social progress in the past 500 years and revolutions which forget their roots fill our history. Yet while revolutions forget their roots and are perverted the spirit of revolt which seeks simply the betterment of the human condition, a spirit in harmony with our biology, is essential for any progress.
“A common theme of this blog is that the world of the future will be one where political , social, and economic relations are primarily local and personal. ”
A blackout in communications suggests this idea.
“”You lack courage and accept the condition of the world as it is spreading fear to get others to go along with you.””
“I think a legitimate and sincere accounting of the body count would show that you are far less likely to be tortured or murdered by cowards who accept the world as it is , very likely to be tortured or murdered by idealistic revolutionaries.”
This is no more than the dichotomy which separates master/slave and does not mean much. A requirement of authentic revolt is to deal with the world as it is and authentic revolt does not operate on rules where the ends justify any means or sacrifice to serve a future utopia. Operating as if the ends justify any means is a revolution betrayed. Being tortured or murdered by truly idealistic revolutionaries is an oxymoron.
Saying you are very likely to be tortured or murdered by idealistic revolutionaries is spreading fear to get others to go along with you, again. I find the spreading of fear to be a tedious tactic of our time intended to suppress discussion, be the tactic intentional or not. A knee-jerk reaction which favors compliance.
Pass the catsup, I can’t eat this sandwich as it is.
My statement is not theological it isontological.
“very likely to be tortured or murdered by idealistic revolutionaries. ”
Mr, Tibbs, take note…sheepdogs, indeed.
I think a legitimate and sincere accounting of the body count would show that you are far more likely to be tortured or murdered by cowards who accept the world as it is than be tortured or murdered by idealistic revolutionaries
This is the true statement.
Idealistic revolutionaries are as rare as snow in July.
Mathematics wins.
The guards at Sobibór were not idealistic revolutionaries. They dropped in their Zyklon B canisters through roof opening into gas chambers and they were ordinary men to cowardly to renounce murder. Ordinary men obeying orders without reflection. Ordinary men as common as snow in January. Ordinary men without spine.
” Ordinary men without spine.”
Dog,
No need for the qualification “without spine”….
“Unfortunately , the tinkering of hobbyists has also imposed on the peasantry degradations and usurpations that would have shocked a slave of 200 years ago , and which Stalin or Mao could not even have dreamed of in their wildest fantasies. ”
I think you are right. Slaves of 200 years ago only worked overtime at harvest and had more time off overall. Beatings on average only happened once every three years.
” A proper response was that nothing should go unless determined to be in our best interest…. ”
WHO is “our ” ?
“….that things really do matter and that they matter very much. ”
According to WHO ?
Also, given that life is brief , and that even the most famous people will be forgotten eventually , and that the Las Vegas casino odds are that extinction is the likely outcome regardless of what anyone , or any group, does, or does not, do , HOW , WHY do things ” matter ” ?
” No creative syntheses is reached…. ”
The all – important qualifier ; ” creative syntheses ” . That decides it !
Except ……WHO defines what constitutes ” creative syntheses ” ?
” …from a morality ….”
“morality ” according to WHO ?
“…from guiding principles … ”
According to WHO ?
Who ?
Who ?
And again , WHO ?
” worked out by mankind in a continual struggle ”
In plain language ; A nebulous “we” make it all up as we go along.
The definitions of all these fine words you use, in plain words , are to be decided by the next vote.
And the next vote may be won by Nazis , or by Maoists, or by ” anything goes and nothing matters ” nihilists.
To be fair, Martin Luther would NOT have gone so far as to say , ” worked out by mankind in a continual struggle ” , 500 YEARS AGO.
To be fair, Thomas Jefferson would NOT have gone so far as to say , ” worked out by mankind in a continual struggle ” , 200 YEARS AGO.
Adolf Hitler DID SAY , ” worked out by mankind in a continual struggle ” 80 years ago.
the only recognizable limit in all of this ;
“…. duties and privileges formerly reserved for god. ”
” The future is now. ”
Is a fine phrase. As cognitive science though , it is shit.
Dogs and cows may think or live in the now ( ? ) , but the human mind never does except in brief moments.
otherwise, no one buys life insurance , voluntarily pays taxes for an army , invests, builds a business , accumulates savings, plants a crop , engages in courtship , etc , etc, etc, on the premise of ,
” The future is now. ”
Frankly, your courage looks to me like a sophistic kicking of the can down the road.
” Pass the catsup, I can’t eat this sandwich as it is. ”
looks like projection to me. :p
” Idealistic revolutionaries are as rare as snow in July. ”
It may seem so to you because genuine idealists are digging ditches, scrubbing toilets, starving , in prison , or dead.
” The guards at Sobibór were not idealistic revolutionaries. ”
Neither is that whole crowd who, to this day, gloss over the fact that the U.S. Government and the British government were bankrolling the genocidal Bolsheviks when Hitler was still only a regional celebrity , when the first team of the fascists were the Italians, who took nearly three years to subdue Ethiopians armed with flintlocks.
Adolf Hitler DID SAY , ” worked out by mankind in a continual struggle ” 80 years ago.
Am I wrong Janos ? 🙂
( I do have a copy of Mein Kampf. )
” My statement is not theological it is ontological. ”
You want to play god , but without taking the heat.
and your habitual ” Our(s) ” and, “we(s) ” are the “courage ” of gangs .
Hello Gracenphil,
I believe the scenario you outlined for 20 years hence is still a good candidate for the most probable outcome. Picture a bell-shaped curve of scenarios, where the height of the curve is proportional to the probability of its occurrence. Your scenario would be at or near the top of this curve. However, I also believe that the top of the curve has been shrinking while the tails of the curve have been fattening, making doomsday scenarios more probable than they used to be. (Think of the changes that have occurred since 1997, 20 years ago. FWIW, I think the declining sperm count of men in the industrialized world may develop into a full-blown black swan. Other surprises no doubt await.) I’m a great believer in human ingenuity, not so great a believer in human wisdom.
A possible reason why the economy hasn’t collapsed, in spite of various structural weaknesses, is the “slow burn” scenario put forth by Catherine Austin Fitts. That is, the most impressive fruits of human ingenuity have been corralled into black budget programs of the really deep state, programs which generate–and hoard– enormous wealth. So, the above-board economy can be propped up as necessary as long as it serve the purposes of those in control of these programs. (Check out solari.com and be your own judge of the plausibility of this scenario.)