It's consistently embarrassing how just plain dumb these supposed intellectual heavyweights are. They're all credential, no ability. Like the scarecrow, they have diplomas in place of brains. It's not even just that they're discourse consists entirely of sophistry; it's that they can't even do sophistry right.
We both know this guy Snyder and what he's doing: he's dressing up all the prejudices, fears and desires of the NYT/NPR ruling class in fancy credentials, overheated rhetoric and the simplistic wielding of various historical episodes.
If you can hit the sweet spot where these people get to feel a frisson of fear, outrage and self-righteous superiority, you and your kids will be set for life!
It's ironic that those who claim to be battling fascist demagoguery can't but help resorting to your classic demagogic tools: the tried and true admixture of fear and flattery.
He is as much an "intellectual" as the guy who churns out buckets of fish meal at Sea World is a chef.
But I'm not 'embarrassed' about the colossal ignorance and rank stupidity so often exhibited by the "supposed intellectual heavyweights". (aka "experts") I'm irritated, frustrated, and sometimes angry; but mainly, I'm saddened by the fact that we, society, appear to place our confidence in the blathering of these 'stupid smart people'.
When my wife and I first met, we used to have long talks about these arrogant, mind-killing frauds, and what we should name them. We settled on "experts in expertology".
No, i don't think that's what is happening , Andy. People like Snyder are simply the myriad useful idiots that pop up like mushrooms in the right authoritarian conditions. Snyder is simply signaling his obeisance to the gods of the State, declaring their enemies as his enemies and sacrificing his intellect, integrity, and credentials-- his life work-- on their altar.
He doesn't see it as a sacrifice and he has no integrity. His only aspirations are the accolades of his equally vacuous colleagues. This is his moment to shine. The most important thing he will ever do with his life is condescend.
Yeah, it's unreal. And sometimes I find myself wondering, if reincarnation is real, what did I do the last time around to be reborn under a banana republic ruled by idiot bullshitters, where a large number of voters are NPCs who believe all the bullshit?
Kinda tells you all about the entire cradle-to-grave education system, doesn't it? --- And now all of you understand why I hate dumbocraps. The un-degreed and the uber degreed. They are all racist, fascist, narcissistic, a$$hole$.
I grew up in San Fransicko. That’s about as bad as it gets. BUT, SF wasn’t like it is today. It was an amazing, historical city to grow up in! It was BEAUTIFUL! Talk about class. Leftist nuts destroyed SF. The memories I have are priceless!
I was never "one of them." They always had to be right. To not argue constantly, I just kept quiet. Also, a lifesaving move when it's you against everyone else. I finally gave it up. I could only be a patsy for so long, which was way too long. The 1 thing I would stand up to them about was racism. I wouldn't tolerate it in my presence. Ever.
They legitimize there opinions with titles. This guy is just another leftist crackpot, but he is credentialed in the all right ways a leftist likes so his words are important. Academia is basically just a group of like minded leftists that pay each other on the backs and legitimize there outlandish far left views with bogus titles. The guy got a PhD in history, so what. All it means is that he spent his entire adult life at a university instead of living in the real world.
I stand by my comment: Liberals are some of the dumbest people I have ever met. And I know that’s a subjective comment. I live in a ground zero, leftist area of Commifornia. I SEE IT! It’s demoralizing seeing people this brain dead.
I hope you can leave at some point. I keep thinking maybe we should all have a plan. Move all at once to the same state (or group of contiguous states) and just say "no thanks" when anyone comes knocking. I know it isn't that simple.
I think that’s what should happen Mark, but then pro freedom Americans would be in one place. Is that good or bad? I don’t know what the answer is. I think it does entail a PARALLEL SOCIETY.
Thankfully there's a silver lining. They have to spend money to try to round us up, use lawfare etc. but all we have to do to defeat them is destroy the printing press. They'll be so busy trying to figure out how to actually produce something or provide a service that someone wants that we'll largely be free of their idiocy.
What I mean by destroy the printing press is abolish the federal reserve system. I understand that it will probably never be politically expedient to do so, but acknowledging this as the source of all of the unsustainable insanity is therapeutic, to me at least.
The Power to end the Fed is such absolute power and that it requires total victory. It is not a path to victory, it is an end not a means. So this is yet another 1 neat trick that sidesteps the problem of psychopaths on the Commanding Heights are suddenly and magically thwarted by MAGIC 🪄 that renders them powerless. Er, no.
I will be polite and say this confuses ends with ways, and there’s no means.
I will be direct and say this is fantasy, on a scale of “all we have to do is Defeat Nazi Germany in 1940 without an army by just PRAYER or some such silliness.
Maybe we could try Chain letters... ? Or some really cool memes to own the Libs?
If worthless money and counterfeiting won wars then the Revolution would have failed, as would the Civil War, as indeed the Napoleonic wars, we can go on.
Not to mention their Fiat - or even Gold should they decide to use Gold - will be taken but so will the fruits of Decentralized Finance. You’d simply be building their future takings. Being fatter and perhaps slyer cattle is not the path to survival.
Wars require money however far more important require that you have fighters. This ends the matter, 🇺🇸 has no fight in them.
Their money would be at risk.
You want to essentially buy your way out of this facing trillionaires and you wish to do this with money conjured from the Ether.
If someone takes your ether and is punished can you retaliate?
Can you protect the people who take your Ether? Not if you abjure from force. The opponent does not abjure. So this is fantasy, a dangerous one. It is dangerous for the fantasists.
As it happens- quit. The rest have. If 🇺🇸 they can’t tweet vote or lawyer way out its over- just like Trump.
These 🇺🇸 are the people Sherman saw lose all the fight in them at Shiloh when their holdings were ravaged and then he saw victory, and took it 2 years later on his march.
Thank-you! That was what I first thought, which makes sense, but with so many other printing options these days, I wanted to make sure I understood your idea. It would be nice if we could pull the plugs and put the Fed printing out of business. (Just get rid of the Fed.)
There certainly is an economic principle in effect. The second oldest law of economics, "Follow the money!" (The oldest law of economics is the Golden Rule, "He who has the gold makes the rules.")
I agree. It just seems to me like the difference between a high-priced escort on the upper east side and a rent-a-slave on the Hunt's Point market. The whores are all whores, and the Johns all Johns. But the price and quality assurance is different. These whores twerk in thongs, and their clients are.too drunk to see the sores and scars.
If the Jan 6 protesters had successfully taken over the capitol building it would have been roughly comparable to what protesters in Seattle accomplished back in 2020 with their "CHOP" or "Summer of Love" or "mostly peaceful arson festival" or "failed experiment in socialism" or whatever you choose to call it.
It wouldn't have amounted to a permanent takeover of the US federal government -- or anything else really. It certainly would not have destroyed Democracy, any more than Seattle's CHOP did. It would have amounted to a dull footnote in a history textbook, which is pretty much its status right now. In fact, that's the reason congressional Democrats schedule hearing after hearing after hearing about it: the whole mess is already fading from popular memory.
If CHOP kills but you whine you are ruled by CHOP (we are).
As it turned out Killers beat the Norman Rockwell Painting.
“Here the People Rule -BANG 💥”. Then the people ran.
The People are wankers.
The Other side are killers.
Politics is Power that always means and always meant ☠️.
The rest including Laws and any notion that God gave us our rights is childish. Gunpowder and Artillery and alliance with France gave us our God given rights, perhaps it would help to think of Gunpowder as God, or hard truth There is no God but Force.
If ☠️ is out then you have no politics because you have no power because you won’t pay power’s price.
Pretty much everything the federal government and many state and local governments did over the past two years is in *On Tyranny.* Other than hijacking our tax dollars to make Pfizer rich (let's not forget whose baby "Operation Warp Speed" was), Trump wasn't behind any of it.
1: Do not obey in advance. That's everybody I know, getting the C19 shots because "at some point, my boss or the government will make me."
2: Defend institutions. That's the Catholic Church in the US rolling over and shutting down Mass, even though I've been taught my entire life that to miss Mass on a Sunday is a mortal sin. What's 2000 years of teaching, when there's a bad cold going around?
3: Beware the one-party state. Well, that's been a problem forever, but I didn't see anybody in Congress sticking up for us until Ron Johnson and Rand Paul decided they kind of cared about a few things. So yeah, we have a one-party state.
4: Take responsibility for the face of the world. Swap out "virtue-signaling face mask" for "swastika." Yep.
5: Remember professional ethics. Ah, the article after article on "compassion fatigue" written by doctors who just couldn't even! when faced with a patient who hadn't gotten an experimental C19 shot, and had the audacity to get sick and seek medical care. Also, making people die alone, and locking old folks up in nursing homes. Good times.
6: Beware of paramilitaries. Like the guys Trudeau sicced on the truckers. No face, no name, no badge.
7: Be reflective if you must be armed. Google the cellphone footage of NYPD slapping black people to the ground for walking around outside without a face diaper.
8: Stand out. Kinda obvious.
9: Be kind to our language. "Dead end for this virus" comes to mind. Using "safe and effective" about a product that HAD NOT YET RECEIVED A BLA also comes to mind.
10: Believe in truth. Bad cattitude has covered this far better than I can. A few nice "we have the receipts" bits are Deb Birx on whether the vaccine would work and virtually everything Rochelle Walensky says.
11: Investigate. Hahahahahahahaha FOIA requests.
12: Make eye contact and small talk. Or, you know, stay locked in your house and don't allow your child to see any human faces.
13: Practice corporeal politics. See point 12 above.
14: Establish a private life. Well, this one is actually one that Biden's online storm troops have helped along. If you're banned from every social media platform, you have to spread your message in other ways. Then again, if you're Mark Crispin Miller, and the NYU goons have gotten you, you're forced online. YMMV.
15: Contribute to good causes. Ah, like the truckers. Then get your contribution seized by GoFundMe.
16: Learn from peers in other countries. Or spend months mocking Sweden before pretending it doesn't exist. Also ignore Uttar Pradesh and other regions that have used off-patent drugs to treat a virus.
17: Listen for dangerous words. Like calling people "anti-vaxxers" because they don't want their 12-year-old to take an experimental mRNA product to enter buildings in NYC? Or calling parents who attend school board meetings "terrorists"? Duly noted.
18: Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Hard to recall any administration that hit the panic button as often as Biden's.
19: Be a patriot. And if you're Ron DeSantis, get called every perjorative word in the book by the current regime.
20: Be as courageous as you can. Like maybe going outdoors for a walk without a face diaper. Oh, wait, cops would throw you to the ground if you did that. In York County, PA, a woman was arrested for going for a drive by herself that wasn't "essential travel."
So I think Snyder would agree with me that nearly every in-office politician from 2020 through the present is part of the most tyrannical movement the US has ever seen. Right?
So many words to say basically nothing. I couldn't get through much of it. And I laughed out loud when he claimed Jan. 6 protesters could shut down democracy by **humiliating** members of congress. If only it were that easy!!
He misspelled "eerie," which... wow. Also, it's so cute how he mentions Havel in his book, but misses the fact that Havel stood up for Plastic People of the Universe, not for the repressive regime that arrested them for playing an unsanctioned concert. Maybe he didn't actually read any of Havel's books? Didn't know what Charter 77 was about?
Right, it is not just "eery," but it is also "...truckers who are at all effected is in the low thousands...." He may have missed both spelling and grammar sessions in grade school. (Typos, sure, particularly in "Comments" sections, but someone once said that our respect for language and our respect for logic so often coincide....
Several hundred very accurate critical observations have already been made in the comments section to this piece written by Chris. I would go so far as to endeavor to add yet another.
I am smacked by what I would call Snyder's "wild incoherence." It is more (and more dastardly) than illogic. I find examples of it throughout "Winter sieges..." For just one example, from the page that I happen to have open in the browser window at the moment, he flings forth the following generalizing assertion: "There are people who have no greater hope than just to show that democratic government, as traditionally understood in places like American and Canada, does not work..." to refer, especially, to the protesting Canadian truckers. He says this as if it would be just plain hopelessly erroneous to suppose that protesting truckers could in fact have a sincere and significant hope that the matters in their lives could be understood and that their voices could be heard.
It is not just dismissive. It is more obverse than that. The same kind of propositional "motion" could have it that the only reason people ever say "good morning" or "thank you" to other people is to sneer in social distinction. Another similar kind of "backhand spread" comes in the discussion of "vaccination" requirements at a border: "To be sure, Canada also requires vaccination to get back in to Canada; but Canadian truckers cannot do business in America without crossing the American border and complying with American rules, so this does not really matter."
Right, it "does not really matter" how the Canadian government treats its own citizens, in fact, or as example, or in any way.
Probably enough for quotes, suffer through the rest of it for more, but -- with the exceptions of people in this Comments section, here -- comes the challenge to all of us by the recognizable curious general acceptability of what Snyder writes. It is not hard, for me in any case, to read that shit and readily imagine thousands, tens of thousands, used to many of the same "dance steps" in talking / writing from many media outlets nodding heads, murmuring "oh yeahs" waddling along with all of it.
We have made the kind of "declaring" and the kinds of declaration he makes, not just acceptable, but a stylistic (and methodological) goal to be achieved. For random selection, Paul Krugman often played with many similar kinds of broad motions that followed no particular contours of any reality in NY Times op-eds (Nobel prize winner, etc. and all).
The manner of them has managed to make the contrary to relevant reality features of them almost unnoticeable to very many of us.
Please mail Timothy Snyder a copy of this as snail mail--or would you like me to? I'll send it to him c/o his publisher. I even bought nice stamps today, by coincidence. Or, maybe we could each do a fill-in- the-blanks version, since I have other examples.
I love that idea. I can send it to him via Crown, but I have my doubts as to whether he'd get it. Maybe if I sent it to him at Yale? I think professors tend to open their Umail.
Someone (a true hero) signed me up for MoveOn dot org emails and they are PRECIOUS. It’s the highlight of my week that I get to read the most unhinged lunacy known to man. ORANGE MAN BAD!!! COUP!!! RIGHT WING WHITE SUPREMACY!!!!
These people are nuts. They are members of the most dangerous religion ever known to man.
They're very very emotional over Milley's "resignation letter," which shows us how terrifyingly close we got to actual fascism. I've been laughing so hard I've had to pull over.
I used to read Animal Farm and think it was funny how absurd the pigs' lies were and how stupidly gullible so many of the other animals were to believe them. But now I see the ease with which our own political leaders and their apologists in academia and mainstream media tell such obvious lies, and the complete credulity of the NPCs taking them at their word without ever noticing their words are self-contradictory, and Animal Farm doesn't seem so funny anymore. It's like 1% of the population are psychopaths and another 50% (or more) are mindless NPCs programmed to believe anything the psychopaths tell them.
“ In a democracy, Democrats win elections; if Republicans win an election, we have lost our democracy, because obviously they will have cheated.” - This is outstanding
So funny you landed on this Chris. I was going to interview him hoping to draw the parallels between C-19 tyranny and his book on tyranny and then I did a Google search of his attitudes. I threw my hands up in the air.
One would think that people who hold the titles and accolades from their hard work in gaining them at higher learning centers would have a vastly superior grasp of basic civics and economics than they apparently do.
It never ceases to amaze me when these gilded experts are brought in front of a camera or microphone and the amount of factual garbage (as in it’s a fact that garbage is coming out of their mouth) falls out their pie holes. The entire time with a smug look on their faces.
Members of the Democratic Party not winning an election ruins our democracy? Democracy in practice is he who has more people agreeing with him wins. In a nutshell mob rule. The only reason shifts in power happen in our nation is due to the Electoral College. I really wonder what his stance would be if we practiced “democracy” and he found himself on the losing side? Would he acquiesce his loss and concede an election was fair, or would he throw a temper tantrum just like all his screed seems to be? I already know the answer.
With what Chris posted of Snyder’s statements, Snyder is so woefully inept of comprehension of what is actually playing out across the state elections it’s mind numbing. States are making it so Trump will be installed? States have done nothing since 2020. Maricopa County in Arizona still has rogue Election Officials who have been in contempt of The State Senate since May of last year. Nothing has changed even after their audit. Georgia is still a hotbed of election corruption. A county in Mew Mexico just this week after live streaming an audit rejected the Dominion voting machines and declared they would recount the election results by hand. That was unanimous by that county’s election board, yet the AG overrode them and said pound sand, dominions count stands. Is that even legal, I have no clue? But it demonstrates as well as the others I mentioned that facts on the ground are entirely in another universe than Snyder’s claimed reality.
Don’t even get me started with politicians. We have a gaggle of lawyers who only a small handful have practiced law, most have never had a real job where they lived paycheck to paycheck, more than a bushel who are morally bankrupt, and even one who thinks an island is able to capsize if too many inhabitants live on one side of it as policy and law makers. All look down their noses at those who pay their salaries. They can’t even agree on how best to screw us over let alone understand not have ever read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have protected classes of people except children and elderly as we do now.
These people may have high degrees and titles but that is all. Otherwise the lot of them all, academics, talking heads, news topic experts, politicians, and bureaucrats are narcissistic, spoiled, petulant nowits(spelling intended) who find it entertaining to gaslight and bite the hands that feed them on a daily schedule.
I have gotten to the point where when I hear someone using neuro linguistic programming techniques to speak to others as if the ones being spoken to are somehow beneath the speaker, that speakers voice turns into an adult voice from a Charles Schulz cartoon. Regardless of political affiliation.
They are not my tribe and will never be part of my tribe. We aren’t that dumb.
Snyder is a buffoon. I read "On Tyranny" in 2017, when my Dad was dying. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, which lifted my spirits a little but drew some weird looks from the nurses.
In Los Angeles, back in the Hour of the Rising of the Great Orange Literally Adolf Hitler, bookstores displayed "On Tyranny" at the cash registers, to bring the thing to your attention and let you know that they endorsed it and found it important. So I picked it up, in a bookstore, under the watchful eyes of the staff, and started reading, and then started...
...giggling like a schoolgirl. Like, tittering and snorting and eyerolling. And I looked up to see a line of Very Grim Faces. Which, unfortunately, forced me into actual guffawing, after which I was socially dead to a whole shift of clerks.
Funny thing that you mentioned it. My History professor in college was an Iranian who’s family had escaped the Islamic Revolution. He was who opened my eyes politically to the status quo. I’m eternally thankful for that. He wouldn’t just state his opinion, but explain how he came to his opinion. That class was one of my best semesters at school.
My favorite all time professor, my mentor in my PhD program in history, was one of the top foreign relations historians in the country. He didn't hate America. We agreed on a lot of things and if he were alive today, he would be condemning the idiots in Washington.
I’m sure he would. I have a couple friends my moms age who pre fauxplague, I considered moonbattish. Somewhat vocally liberal, but in no way caustic. I did some work for them over the past couple years that they weren’t able to do and what I found out was that, while they were not by any means conservative politically, they were highly conservative fiscally, as well as socially. We found out that we actually were closer in common that we all had previously thought of each other. It was just the way we felt government involvement in society should be was our divide. I’m one who wants as little as possible to have government in my life, they feel it should help the less fortunate. I’ve seen that outcome while always never able to get assistance when I may have needed it. So my mind is set that if you’re able bodied, then you don’t deserve assistance. No matter your situation. You do what you have to not what you would like to do. Especially if you have littles.
I’m rambling, but yes. I agree there are many people who are of many educational and political ideologies that are able to converse with and debate issues without devolving into tantrums. There are many but way way too few as well. On both sides.
I’m at a point in my life that my only responsibility is myself and my dog. I’m now with someone who wants to be with me for me not some idealized idea or a free ride. I want to just do what I need to to enjoy that.
But I will not be afforded even that luxury of happiness. Once again people my age are going to have to clean up the messes our parents (baby boomers) are making with their goddamned Me me me tantrums. Gen X was called the lost generation as we didn’t have ambition. We did but that was crushed from us before we were teenager having to learn to survive living through revolving door step parents, self absorbed inattentive parents, or parents who shat on anything you wanted to do or be. Constant demoralization. Our ambition was to rid ourselves of our parental units and walk away. But they are now in Washington having another narcissistic tantrum. It won’t take much to have us rid ourselves of them finally once and for all and it’s not something we want. But most gen X age people have already played it out in our heads thousands of times. It won’t cause and sleep loss if it comes to that.
It does no good to call out their hypocrisy. They are in power, rubbing our noses in it, and laughing at us when we whine about it. (Not saying you're whining. I mean our side in general.)
That's what you do when you're in power; of course they're hypocrites. People in power make you hold the piss bucket and piss all over your hands deliberately. And then laugh at you because you're not in power and you have piss on your hands. The only answer is to fight and claw back power so there are some checks and balances.
It's just a good thing that Trump wasn't there when they raided his house. He is a fat slob who is way out of shape but he nearly overpowered 2 secret service agents on Jan. 6th. Imagine how quickly he could have overpowered those 30 FBI agents if his weak flabby fat slob super strength was not contained inside an automobile. He would have quickly subdued them and then used the nuclear launch codes he obviously stole to plunge this world into nuclear winter or much worse given kompromat on the French president to Putin. Just think what kind of leverage Putin would have over Europe with that AND control over their energy supply!
I'm just glad they moved so quickly and didn't wait 4 days to execute that search warrant after letting Trump hold on to all the top secret information for 18 months.
It's consistently embarrassing how just plain dumb these supposed intellectual heavyweights are. They're all credential, no ability. Like the scarecrow, they have diplomas in place of brains. It's not even just that they're discourse consists entirely of sophistry; it's that they can't even do sophistry right.
We both know this guy Snyder and what he's doing: he's dressing up all the prejudices, fears and desires of the NYT/NPR ruling class in fancy credentials, overheated rhetoric and the simplistic wielding of various historical episodes.
If you can hit the sweet spot where these people get to feel a frisson of fear, outrage and self-righteous superiority, you and your kids will be set for life!
It's ironic that those who claim to be battling fascist demagoguery can't but help resorting to your classic demagogic tools: the tried and true admixture of fear and flattery.
He is as much an "intellectual" as the guy who churns out buckets of fish meal at Sea World is a chef.
"...the sweet spot where these people get to feel a frisson of fear, outrage and self-righteous superiority."
Exactly.
hey, ive done my market research!
Its just credentialed sycophancy , correct.
Love the Scarecrow analogy. Right on!
But I'm not 'embarrassed' about the colossal ignorance and rank stupidity so often exhibited by the "supposed intellectual heavyweights". (aka "experts") I'm irritated, frustrated, and sometimes angry; but mainly, I'm saddened by the fact that we, society, appear to place our confidence in the blathering of these 'stupid smart people'.
When my wife and I first met, we used to have long talks about these arrogant, mind-killing frauds, and what we should name them. We settled on "experts in expertology".
It sounds like you married well.
True. For the record, the runner-up was "those goddamnned motherfuckers".
This one has my vote.
No, i don't think that's what is happening , Andy. People like Snyder are simply the myriad useful idiots that pop up like mushrooms in the right authoritarian conditions. Snyder is simply signaling his obeisance to the gods of the State, declaring their enemies as his enemies and sacrificing his intellect, integrity, and credentials-- his life work-- on their altar.
He doesn't see it as a sacrifice and he has no integrity. His only aspirations are the accolades of his equally vacuous colleagues. This is his moment to shine. The most important thing he will ever do with his life is condescend.
To be fair, his life isn't over yet. I believe there is a possibility for redemption for even the worst of us. That said, it doesn't look good.
Yeah, it's unreal. And sometimes I find myself wondering, if reincarnation is real, what did I do the last time around to be reborn under a banana republic ruled by idiot bullshitters, where a large number of voters are NPCs who believe all the bullshit?
Maybe we are suppose to be the Light and the Truth.
Kinda tells you all about the entire cradle-to-grave education system, doesn't it? --- And now all of you understand why I hate dumbocraps. The un-degreed and the uber degreed. They are all racist, fascist, narcissistic, a$$hole$.
You grew up around them, too, huh?
I grew up in San Fransicko. That’s about as bad as it gets. BUT, SF wasn’t like it is today. It was an amazing, historical city to grow up in! It was BEAUTIFUL! Talk about class. Leftist nuts destroyed SF. The memories I have are priceless!
SICKO for sure! Lol!
I was never "one of them." They always had to be right. To not argue constantly, I just kept quiet. Also, a lifesaving move when it's you against everyone else. I finally gave it up. I could only be a patsy for so long, which was way too long. The 1 thing I would stand up to them about was racism. I wouldn't tolerate it in my presence. Ever.
They legitimize there opinions with titles. This guy is just another leftist crackpot, but he is credentialed in the all right ways a leftist likes so his words are important. Academia is basically just a group of like minded leftists that pay each other on the backs and legitimize there outlandish far left views with bogus titles. The guy got a PhD in history, so what. All it means is that he spent his entire adult life at a university instead of living in the real world.
I stand by my comment: Liberals are some of the dumbest people I have ever met. And I know that’s a subjective comment. I live in a ground zero, leftist area of Commifornia. I SEE IT! It’s demoralizing seeing people this brain dead.
I hope you can leave at some point. I keep thinking maybe we should all have a plan. Move all at once to the same state (or group of contiguous states) and just say "no thanks" when anyone comes knocking. I know it isn't that simple.
I think that’s what should happen Mark, but then pro freedom Americans would be in one place. Is that good or bad? I don’t know what the answer is. I think it does entail a PARALLEL SOCIETY.
They won Mr. Carter.
They will likely win in November regardless of actual voting (it’s childish to keep talking about elections or laws but that’s my fellow Americans).
They.
Won.
It.
All.
Shows you the trivial importance of intelligence to power. Trivial.
Thankfully there's a silver lining. They have to spend money to try to round us up, use lawfare etc. but all we have to do to defeat them is destroy the printing press. They'll be so busy trying to figure out how to actually produce something or provide a service that someone wants that we'll largely be free of their idiocy.
Are you meaning the money printing presses all across the country? Or every old school printing press, every computer printer or copiers?
What I mean by destroy the printing press is abolish the federal reserve system. I understand that it will probably never be politically expedient to do so, but acknowledging this as the source of all of the unsustainable insanity is therapeutic, to me at least.
The Power to end the Fed is such absolute power and that it requires total victory. It is not a path to victory, it is an end not a means. So this is yet another 1 neat trick that sidesteps the problem of psychopaths on the Commanding Heights are suddenly and magically thwarted by MAGIC 🪄 that renders them powerless. Er, no.
I will be polite and say this confuses ends with ways, and there’s no means.
I will be direct and say this is fantasy, on a scale of “all we have to do is Defeat Nazi Germany in 1940 without an army by just PRAYER or some such silliness.
Maybe we could try Chain letters... ? Or some really cool memes to own the Libs?
You're right, of course. Does promotion of decentralized finance constitute a viable means in your estimation?
No. They have power, organization, force.
If worthless money and counterfeiting won wars then the Revolution would have failed, as would the Civil War, as indeed the Napoleonic wars, we can go on.
Not to mention their Fiat - or even Gold should they decide to use Gold - will be taken but so will the fruits of Decentralized Finance. You’d simply be building their future takings. Being fatter and perhaps slyer cattle is not the path to survival.
Wars require money however far more important require that you have fighters. This ends the matter, 🇺🇸 has no fight in them.
Their money would be at risk.
You want to essentially buy your way out of this facing trillionaires and you wish to do this with money conjured from the Ether.
If someone takes your ether and is punished can you retaliate?
Can you protect the people who take your Ether? Not if you abjure from force. The opponent does not abjure. So this is fantasy, a dangerous one. It is dangerous for the fantasists.
As it happens- quit. The rest have. If 🇺🇸 they can’t tweet vote or lawyer way out its over- just like Trump.
These 🇺🇸 are the people Sherman saw lose all the fight in them at Shiloh when their holdings were ravaged and then he saw victory, and took it 2 years later on his march.
No fight, no say, no agency.
END THE FED (my fav sweatshirt)!
Thank-you! That was what I first thought, which makes sense, but with so many other printing options these days, I wanted to make sure I understood your idea. It would be nice if we could pull the plugs and put the Fed printing out of business. (Just get rid of the Fed.)
It would be nice if the Rapture came and took us all to heaven too.
True.
They are low-rent sorcerers. But the bar for hypnosis seems similarly low at the moment. There might be an economic principle in effect.
There certainly is an economic principle in effect. The second oldest law of economics, "Follow the money!" (The oldest law of economics is the Golden Rule, "He who has the gold makes the rules.")
I agree. It just seems to me like the difference between a high-priced escort on the upper east side and a rent-a-slave on the Hunt's Point market. The whores are all whores, and the Johns all Johns. But the price and quality assurance is different. These whores twerk in thongs, and their clients are.too drunk to see the sores and scars.
You live and you learn.
If the Jan 6 protesters had successfully taken over the capitol building it would have been roughly comparable to what protesters in Seattle accomplished back in 2020 with their "CHOP" or "Summer of Love" or "mostly peaceful arson festival" or "failed experiment in socialism" or whatever you choose to call it.
It wouldn't have amounted to a permanent takeover of the US federal government -- or anything else really. It certainly would not have destroyed Democracy, any more than Seattle's CHOP did. It would have amounted to a dull footnote in a history textbook, which is pretty much its status right now. In fact, that's the reason congressional Democrats schedule hearing after hearing after hearing about it: the whole mess is already fading from popular memory.
Jan 6 was nothing like chop.
Correct. The protestors didn't murder anyone.
No - 1-2 were murdered 1/6.
Or perhaps Killed is the better term.
So CHOP > Jan 6.
If CHOP kills but you whine you are ruled by CHOP (we are).
As it turned out Killers beat the Norman Rockwell Painting.
“Here the People Rule -BANG 💥”. Then the people ran.
The People are wankers.
The Other side are killers.
Politics is Power that always means and always meant ☠️.
The rest including Laws and any notion that God gave us our rights is childish. Gunpowder and Artillery and alliance with France gave us our God given rights, perhaps it would help to think of Gunpowder as God, or hard truth There is no God but Force.
If ☠️ is out then you have no politics because you have no power because you won’t pay power’s price.
It would be better to disappear from public view.
Pretty much everything the federal government and many state and local governments did over the past two years is in *On Tyranny.* Other than hijacking our tax dollars to make Pfizer rich (let's not forget whose baby "Operation Warp Speed" was), Trump wasn't behind any of it.
1: Do not obey in advance. That's everybody I know, getting the C19 shots because "at some point, my boss or the government will make me."
2: Defend institutions. That's the Catholic Church in the US rolling over and shutting down Mass, even though I've been taught my entire life that to miss Mass on a Sunday is a mortal sin. What's 2000 years of teaching, when there's a bad cold going around?
3: Beware the one-party state. Well, that's been a problem forever, but I didn't see anybody in Congress sticking up for us until Ron Johnson and Rand Paul decided they kind of cared about a few things. So yeah, we have a one-party state.
4: Take responsibility for the face of the world. Swap out "virtue-signaling face mask" for "swastika." Yep.
5: Remember professional ethics. Ah, the article after article on "compassion fatigue" written by doctors who just couldn't even! when faced with a patient who hadn't gotten an experimental C19 shot, and had the audacity to get sick and seek medical care. Also, making people die alone, and locking old folks up in nursing homes. Good times.
6: Beware of paramilitaries. Like the guys Trudeau sicced on the truckers. No face, no name, no badge.
7: Be reflective if you must be armed. Google the cellphone footage of NYPD slapping black people to the ground for walking around outside without a face diaper.
8: Stand out. Kinda obvious.
9: Be kind to our language. "Dead end for this virus" comes to mind. Using "safe and effective" about a product that HAD NOT YET RECEIVED A BLA also comes to mind.
10: Believe in truth. Bad cattitude has covered this far better than I can. A few nice "we have the receipts" bits are Deb Birx on whether the vaccine would work and virtually everything Rochelle Walensky says.
11: Investigate. Hahahahahahahaha FOIA requests.
12: Make eye contact and small talk. Or, you know, stay locked in your house and don't allow your child to see any human faces.
13: Practice corporeal politics. See point 12 above.
14: Establish a private life. Well, this one is actually one that Biden's online storm troops have helped along. If you're banned from every social media platform, you have to spread your message in other ways. Then again, if you're Mark Crispin Miller, and the NYU goons have gotten you, you're forced online. YMMV.
15: Contribute to good causes. Ah, like the truckers. Then get your contribution seized by GoFundMe.
16: Learn from peers in other countries. Or spend months mocking Sweden before pretending it doesn't exist. Also ignore Uttar Pradesh and other regions that have used off-patent drugs to treat a virus.
17: Listen for dangerous words. Like calling people "anti-vaxxers" because they don't want their 12-year-old to take an experimental mRNA product to enter buildings in NYC? Or calling parents who attend school board meetings "terrorists"? Duly noted.
18: Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Hard to recall any administration that hit the panic button as often as Biden's.
19: Be a patriot. And if you're Ron DeSantis, get called every perjorative word in the book by the current regime.
20: Be as courageous as you can. Like maybe going outdoors for a walk without a face diaper. Oh, wait, cops would throw you to the ground if you did that. In York County, PA, a woman was arrested for going for a drive by herself that wasn't "essential travel."
So I think Snyder would agree with me that nearly every in-office politician from 2020 through the present is part of the most tyrannical movement the US has ever seen. Right?
https://snyder.substack.com/p/winter-sieges-of-north-american-capitals
So many words to say basically nothing. I couldn't get through much of it. And I laughed out loud when he claimed Jan. 6 protesters could shut down democracy by **humiliating** members of congress. If only it were that easy!!
He misspelled "eerie," which... wow. Also, it's so cute how he mentions Havel in his book, but misses the fact that Havel stood up for Plastic People of the Universe, not for the repressive regime that arrested them for playing an unsanctioned concert. Maybe he didn't actually read any of Havel's books? Didn't know what Charter 77 was about?
I wasn't able to do anything more than skim that one, because it immediately made me taste bile. That motherfucker, shitting on peaceful protesters.
Right, it is not just "eery," but it is also "...truckers who are at all effected is in the low thousands...." He may have missed both spelling and grammar sessions in grade school. (Typos, sure, particularly in "Comments" sections, but someone once said that our respect for language and our respect for logic so often coincide....
Several hundred very accurate critical observations have already been made in the comments section to this piece written by Chris. I would go so far as to endeavor to add yet another.
I am smacked by what I would call Snyder's "wild incoherence." It is more (and more dastardly) than illogic. I find examples of it throughout "Winter sieges..." For just one example, from the page that I happen to have open in the browser window at the moment, he flings forth the following generalizing assertion: "There are people who have no greater hope than just to show that democratic government, as traditionally understood in places like American and Canada, does not work..." to refer, especially, to the protesting Canadian truckers. He says this as if it would be just plain hopelessly erroneous to suppose that protesting truckers could in fact have a sincere and significant hope that the matters in their lives could be understood and that their voices could be heard.
It is not just dismissive. It is more obverse than that. The same kind of propositional "motion" could have it that the only reason people ever say "good morning" or "thank you" to other people is to sneer in social distinction. Another similar kind of "backhand spread" comes in the discussion of "vaccination" requirements at a border: "To be sure, Canada also requires vaccination to get back in to Canada; but Canadian truckers cannot do business in America without crossing the American border and complying with American rules, so this does not really matter."
Right, it "does not really matter" how the Canadian government treats its own citizens, in fact, or as example, or in any way.
Probably enough for quotes, suffer through the rest of it for more, but -- with the exceptions of people in this Comments section, here -- comes the challenge to all of us by the recognizable curious general acceptability of what Snyder writes. It is not hard, for me in any case, to read that shit and readily imagine thousands, tens of thousands, used to many of the same "dance steps" in talking / writing from many media outlets nodding heads, murmuring "oh yeahs" waddling along with all of it.
We have made the kind of "declaring" and the kinds of declaration he makes, not just acceptable, but a stylistic (and methodological) goal to be achieved. For random selection, Paul Krugman often played with many similar kinds of broad motions that followed no particular contours of any reality in NY Times op-eds (Nobel prize winner, etc. and all).
The manner of them has managed to make the contrary to relevant reality features of them almost unnoticeable to very many of us.
+1000
And you'll never guess which team he's been playing on.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/vaccinate-the-world
Please mail Timothy Snyder a copy of this as snail mail--or would you like me to? I'll send it to him c/o his publisher. I even bought nice stamps today, by coincidence. Or, maybe we could each do a fill-in- the-blanks version, since I have other examples.
I love that idea. I can send it to him via Crown, but I have my doubts as to whether he'd get it. Maybe if I sent it to him at Yale? I think professors tend to open their Umail.
https://history.yale.edu/people/timothy-snyder
Someone (a true hero) signed me up for MoveOn dot org emails and they are PRECIOUS. It’s the highlight of my week that I get to read the most unhinged lunacy known to man. ORANGE MAN BAD!!! COUP!!! RIGHT WING WHITE SUPREMACY!!!!
These people are nuts. They are members of the most dangerous religion ever known to man.
Related, if you're not listening to NPR this week, you're depriving yourself of the best comedy you'll ever hear.
They're not just fellating Garland and the FBI?
TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP and in other news experts say the economy is amazing TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP
Bahaha, really? Wow.
They're very very emotional over Milley's "resignation letter," which shows us how terrifyingly close we got to actual fascism. I've been laughing so hard I've had to pull over.
Holy shit!!! Milley resigned?
Did they cut up his Victoria's Secret card or something?
Did some one mention TRUMP?
I used to read Animal Farm and think it was funny how absurd the pigs' lies were and how stupidly gullible so many of the other animals were to believe them. But now I see the ease with which our own political leaders and their apologists in academia and mainstream media tell such obvious lies, and the complete credulity of the NPCs taking them at their word without ever noticing their words are self-contradictory, and Animal Farm doesn't seem so funny anymore. It's like 1% of the population are psychopaths and another 50% (or more) are mindless NPCs programmed to believe anything the psychopaths tell them.
“ In a democracy, Democrats win elections; if Republicans win an election, we have lost our democracy, because obviously they will have cheated.” - This is outstanding
So funny you landed on this Chris. I was going to interview him hoping to draw the parallels between C-19 tyranny and his book on tyranny and then I did a Google search of his attitudes. I threw my hands up in the air.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/winter-sieges-of-north-american-capitals
He's an EXTREME Covid-19 repression enthusiast. The absence of self-awareness is mindboggling.
LOVE you, Trish....from Canada......
One would think that people who hold the titles and accolades from their hard work in gaining them at higher learning centers would have a vastly superior grasp of basic civics and economics than they apparently do.
It never ceases to amaze me when these gilded experts are brought in front of a camera or microphone and the amount of factual garbage (as in it’s a fact that garbage is coming out of their mouth) falls out their pie holes. The entire time with a smug look on their faces.
Members of the Democratic Party not winning an election ruins our democracy? Democracy in practice is he who has more people agreeing with him wins. In a nutshell mob rule. The only reason shifts in power happen in our nation is due to the Electoral College. I really wonder what his stance would be if we practiced “democracy” and he found himself on the losing side? Would he acquiesce his loss and concede an election was fair, or would he throw a temper tantrum just like all his screed seems to be? I already know the answer.
With what Chris posted of Snyder’s statements, Snyder is so woefully inept of comprehension of what is actually playing out across the state elections it’s mind numbing. States are making it so Trump will be installed? States have done nothing since 2020. Maricopa County in Arizona still has rogue Election Officials who have been in contempt of The State Senate since May of last year. Nothing has changed even after their audit. Georgia is still a hotbed of election corruption. A county in Mew Mexico just this week after live streaming an audit rejected the Dominion voting machines and declared they would recount the election results by hand. That was unanimous by that county’s election board, yet the AG overrode them and said pound sand, dominions count stands. Is that even legal, I have no clue? But it demonstrates as well as the others I mentioned that facts on the ground are entirely in another universe than Snyder’s claimed reality.
Don’t even get me started with politicians. We have a gaggle of lawyers who only a small handful have practiced law, most have never had a real job where they lived paycheck to paycheck, more than a bushel who are morally bankrupt, and even one who thinks an island is able to capsize if too many inhabitants live on one side of it as policy and law makers. All look down their noses at those who pay their salaries. They can’t even agree on how best to screw us over let alone understand not have ever read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have protected classes of people except children and elderly as we do now.
These people may have high degrees and titles but that is all. Otherwise the lot of them all, academics, talking heads, news topic experts, politicians, and bureaucrats are narcissistic, spoiled, petulant nowits(spelling intended) who find it entertaining to gaslight and bite the hands that feed them on a daily schedule.
I have gotten to the point where when I hear someone using neuro linguistic programming techniques to speak to others as if the ones being spoken to are somehow beneath the speaker, that speakers voice turns into an adult voice from a Charles Schulz cartoon. Regardless of political affiliation.
They are not my tribe and will never be part of my tribe. We aren’t that dumb.
Snyder is a buffoon. I read "On Tyranny" in 2017, when my Dad was dying. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, which lifted my spirits a little but drew some weird looks from the nurses.
I like the cut of your jib, Bray. Good stuff.
In Los Angeles, back in the Hour of the Rising of the Great Orange Literally Adolf Hitler, bookstores displayed "On Tyranny" at the cash registers, to bring the thing to your attention and let you know that they endorsed it and found it important. So I picked it up, in a bookstore, under the watchful eyes of the staff, and started reading, and then started...
...giggling like a schoolgirl. Like, tittering and snorting and eyerolling. And I looked up to see a line of Very Grim Faces. Which, unfortunately, forced me into actual guffawing, after which I was socially dead to a whole shift of clerks.
I think you're on to something there, at the end. Here's somebody taking the same thought a little further:
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/its-not-hypocrisy-youre-just-powerless
Saw that one, and yeah.
"Wouldn't it be simpler if the government dissolved the people and elected another?" (Bertold Brecht circa 1950, I think.)
It's assholes like this guy that keep assholes like Justin* in power because it's 'their asshole'.
*I say Justin because he's a far bigger asshole than Biden.
I miss my old school leftist professors, who would denounce the FBI, CIA, and the American empire.
Funny thing that you mentioned it. My History professor in college was an Iranian who’s family had escaped the Islamic Revolution. He was who opened my eyes politically to the status quo. I’m eternally thankful for that. He wouldn’t just state his opinion, but explain how he came to his opinion. That class was one of my best semesters at school.
My favorite all time professor, my mentor in my PhD program in history, was one of the top foreign relations historians in the country. He didn't hate America. We agreed on a lot of things and if he were alive today, he would be condemning the idiots in Washington.
I’m sure he would. I have a couple friends my moms age who pre fauxplague, I considered moonbattish. Somewhat vocally liberal, but in no way caustic. I did some work for them over the past couple years that they weren’t able to do and what I found out was that, while they were not by any means conservative politically, they were highly conservative fiscally, as well as socially. We found out that we actually were closer in common that we all had previously thought of each other. It was just the way we felt government involvement in society should be was our divide. I’m one who wants as little as possible to have government in my life, they feel it should help the less fortunate. I’ve seen that outcome while always never able to get assistance when I may have needed it. So my mind is set that if you’re able bodied, then you don’t deserve assistance. No matter your situation. You do what you have to not what you would like to do. Especially if you have littles.
I’m rambling, but yes. I agree there are many people who are of many educational and political ideologies that are able to converse with and debate issues without devolving into tantrums. There are many but way way too few as well. On both sides.
I’m at a point in my life that my only responsibility is myself and my dog. I’m now with someone who wants to be with me for me not some idealized idea or a free ride. I want to just do what I need to to enjoy that.
But I will not be afforded even that luxury of happiness. Once again people my age are going to have to clean up the messes our parents (baby boomers) are making with their goddamned Me me me tantrums. Gen X was called the lost generation as we didn’t have ambition. We did but that was crushed from us before we were teenager having to learn to survive living through revolving door step parents, self absorbed inattentive parents, or parents who shat on anything you wanted to do or be. Constant demoralization. Our ambition was to rid ourselves of our parental units and walk away. But they are now in Washington having another narcissistic tantrum. It won’t take much to have us rid ourselves of them finally once and for all and it’s not something we want. But most gen X age people have already played it out in our heads thousands of times. It won’t cause and sleep loss if it comes to that.
It does no good to call out their hypocrisy. They are in power, rubbing our noses in it, and laughing at us when we whine about it. (Not saying you're whining. I mean our side in general.)
That's what you do when you're in power; of course they're hypocrites. People in power make you hold the piss bucket and piss all over your hands deliberately. And then laugh at you because you're not in power and you have piss on your hands. The only answer is to fight and claw back power so there are some checks and balances.
It's just a good thing that Trump wasn't there when they raided his house. He is a fat slob who is way out of shape but he nearly overpowered 2 secret service agents on Jan. 6th. Imagine how quickly he could have overpowered those 30 FBI agents if his weak flabby fat slob super strength was not contained inside an automobile. He would have quickly subdued them and then used the nuclear launch codes he obviously stole to plunge this world into nuclear winter or much worse given kompromat on the French president to Putin. Just think what kind of leverage Putin would have over Europe with that AND control over their energy supply!
I'm just glad they moved so quickly and didn't wait 4 days to execute that search warrant after letting Trump hold on to all the top secret information for 18 months.
The world will never understand how close it came.
I've taught my children: listen to what people say, they tell you who they are, believe them.