Beryl Howell today quoted Shakespeare's Henry VI in her permanent 100 page order blocking Trump from barring Perkins Coie from working in federal buildings and also yanking their security clearances. Why it took her a hundred pages I will never know, but I imagine it's related to the same psychosis and delusions of grandeur the authors you quoted are suffering from, colloquially known as severe TDS. The fact that these morons are all cut from the exact same cloth is not lost on me, and I imagine it makes them feel really good to wrap themselves so tightly in their delusions, but they are setting themselves up for a very large fall. It's all lies, and the big ones tend to explode in their faces, almost always at the perfect time.
I’d rather wait longer for airtight cases that will stick, rather than a bunch of perp-walks that amount to mere theatrics. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll be right where we were, pre-Nov. 2024, just ‘shorter of breath, and one day closer to death’, individually and as a society.
Great little article, and it captures the essence of the blatant moves that remove political threats, across Europe and beyond. We had a crazy situation here, in Ireland, a few years ago. An election had seen the established parties decimated by the polls, and unable to form a single party government, so coalition talks commenced. The party with the largest vote, a protest vote by the people, (Sinn Fein, who were the political face of the IRA, even though they had always denied this, )desperate for change from the previous decades of power being handed from one established party to the other, were excluded from the coalition talks. On the grounds that they had been associated with the IRA, and terrorism was not to be allowed in government. This, from the two parties that developed out of the rising against the British, which eventually led to their departure, and then from the obligatory civil war that countries who had lived under British rule, seemingly had to have. So two parties that were ‘terrorists’ in their formative years, denied the newer version any power, except opposition. We have had a recent election since, and again, a cobbled together coalition government was formed, with independent ministers, and small parties siding with those old, hated parties. Once again, we are lumbered with government that nobody wanted. They have passed three bits of legislation since the new government was formed. One on a pay increase for themselves. One on a pension increase for themselves. And one to recognise a party that was thought extinct so it could fall in with this coalition. And they wonder why there is low turnout come election time. People twigged that it is all theatre. And it may have continued like this forever, but COVID woke a lot of people up, as their eyes were being called liars by the prevailing narrative, and the shoddy handling of the immigration situation has seen the normally passive, easy going manner of the Irish stretch to its limit. People have had and seen enough. The arrogance of these last decade of Irish governance, and their invisibility when making and implementing decisions, without any engagement with their people, will be their undoing. They do not know how angry people are. They will soon find out, mark my words.
Thanks for the information. Articulated and written so well, that I will be using some of the points you made in my conversations with people who are really trying to make sense of exactly how and why we are seemingly stuck with these parties.
They never will because good people obey rules,respect laws and curate their friendship circles so as to exclude undesirables and as most objectors are highly undesirable,good people avoid them. So don't hold your breath.
People seem to naturally hate being wrong, or admitting that they’ve been had, and worst of all, admitting they were wrong, as well as sometimes having to say sorry in some cases. Couple all of that with a distraction industry in the form of hand held devices and social media apps that cater for every age group, and we now have algorithms forming people’s opinions on issues for them. Try and engage a young person in conversation, and there are levels of annoyance that range from mildl irritation to full on hostility, as they have to look at you rather than their phone. In some settings, you can be surrounded by people, but might as well be on your own. Perfectly curated and filtered photos of an event, taken again and again till the right ones are captured, are posted online, and then people retire from the happenings to see how many likes their snaps have received. Meanwhile, the event is carrying on, without those who have organised the thing participating. It’s sad to see. How do you tackle this? How do you get people with the concentration levels of a fruit fly to engage in political discourse? If it’s online and it’s a clip over 5 minutes long, it won’t be watched in its entirety.
we have but the ones we say it to are not listening...they have their fingers in their ears and are saying blah, blah, blah, blah...they don't want to hear us or listen to us
Similar things have happened in Romania and Brazil. It’s almost as if the conspiracy types are right and globalists worldwide are misusing their power to target nationalists and populists who oppose mass immigration and their other globalist policies.
Plus we have RFK Jr. talking about chemtrails and government complicity in child trafficking. At this point I wouldn’t be too surprised if some public figure's mask was ripped off on live TV, revealing him as a lizard person.
I try to point this out to my New England neighbors, but the nice ones call me fascist. The rest of them (the vast majority—we’re not a nice region) describe me as a kind of demon spawn sired by Josef Mengele, whelped by Lizzie Borden. (What a parent-teacher conference THAT would make!) I walk alone—I and 77,302,579 of my closest friends.
Many are blind, deaf and dumb to political realities in my neck of the woods also. I told one of the few "blue" relatives I have to whom I can fruitfully say as much, "simply, notice when people don't say anything in response to your comment. Notice the silences. There are many, many people who don't see things the way you think they do. Political reality is not what you think it is."
The political left has gotten complacent through controlling dialog and narrative, and therefore falsely believe that because they’ve silenced much of their opposition that they comprise the vast majority. That’s changing and one manifestation I’ve seen in my blue leaning neighborhood is that the Kamala signs have all gone but there are plenty of Trump signs still up. It’s a polite way of giving the middle finger to manufactured consensus.
A couple of years ago two construction vehicles roared up my street (a steep hill) and through a one-way sign at a blind turn. Livid, I hopped in my car to follow them. There are kids and dogs I our ‘hood; they were going to get a piece of my mind. When I found them about a quarter mile away, I saw the Trump stickers on their trucks. Instantly, my mood changed from outraged neighbor to disappointed parent. I explained why I had followed them, and after some initial belligerence, they conceded their fault and apologized. They even offered me a beer. Our mutual bond over Trump turned a potentially explosive situation into a love fest.
Yeah and these are most likely the people driving around with stickers on their cars saying things like tolerate, or be kind, etc--some of the biggest dicks around.
Exactly. I'm in UK but those nice people waiting hopefully for all the other nice people to rise up,well Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a prison cell all to himself. Not many nice people bashing down the cell door to join him. Maybe - a la lanterne - all the good people (who decides) should March on Washington and storm the White House .....oh,that's been tried,- only degenerate ignorant unemployable illiterate deplorables do that. Oh shucks,better just settle down with a Krispy Creme and binge watch White Lotus then.
I know lots of Americans are asking, when this is the topic, "Why aren't people protesting?"
We are, but in our way, which differs from nation to nation, and doesn't get much if any media coverage (not even in our own) because said coverage would mean career suicide for the journos doing it.
Compare it to how your capitalist media covered the Black Looting and Murdering-movement a few years ago, and there you have it, or how hard they pursue the Heidi Fleiss-customer list (or Epstein files, or...).
Protest marches and riots are rare nowadays, it's not like it was 30+ years ago. Now, people instead withdraw their support from the state and its systems, including corporate capitalism, as much as they reasonably can. For Swedes, this means:
1) Migrating to SE Asia (Vietnam, Thailand) or SE Europe (Romania, Hungary)
2) Moving into the countryside; Stockholm, the capital, loses (net) about 6 000 per year and has done so for about ten years now, of Swedes with desirable educations/careers, who move from the city to within 1½ hour commuting distance. This means the city loses the taxes of the most desirable group.
3) Transfering wealth and investments overseas or at least abroad
4) Shuttering your business to bare-bones get-by minimum levels (due to taxes and regs)
And more in the same vein. The reason I call this protesting is this:
It is done mainly for political reasons, not financial (even though finance is politics). The people the system needs to keep functioning well are consciously choosing to withdraw support. You have the same tendency in the USA, but on a much larger scale. So far, the regime is trying to meet this in the stupidest ways possible. I'm sure they will, as Churchill is said to have quipped, do the right thing once every other option has been tried.
What really makes it political, is that even when incremental change is made, even when they try to actually do something right, people still won't go back to business as usual. Last time that was the case, in the 1800s, we almost had a civil war.
Remember, saying "Europe this" or "Europeans that" is about as correct as saying "Africans" unless we're just talking geography.
Most of the European persons I encounter on the internets have TDS as bad as any leftist American and seem completely oblivious to their own political scenario. More concerned about "Trump's Tariffs," than being arrested for posting memes about a middling politician. I have seen them comment about having fear of traveling to the US, because they might never get home or get arrested for criticizing the Orange Man. And they have contempt for half this country who would vote for such a man thereby expressing our hatred of Europeans.
I don't doubt it. About 1/3 (Sweden) have TDS because their only news-sources are state-media and regime-loyal capitalist media. Like having The View and The Atlantic, WaPo and MSNBC and such as your only news in the USA.
I'm a bit odd, or rare, because being retired I have nothing to lose financially or career-wise and so I can be much more outspoken than most (well, some of my comments could put me in prison, but so what?) and I have the educational background to be able to debate with a bit more insight than people who just have their high school-ed from the 1990s or even earlier and Hollywood as their source of knowledge on US politics.
On the other hand, just as many - the silent majority who's not out on the web because they have other stuff to do - really don't give two figs about the US at all, beyond celebrities and entertainment and sports. It's just that they never show up in any debates online, since they don't care, and so the ones who do (like the TDS crowd or dissidents like me) become the "face" of things.
Which obviously is the same for Americans. Most aren't online, and most don't know much more about Europe than does a random European about US internal politics.
Here's a good example: most Swedes have an image of El Salvador that was established in the 1980s/1990s, because that's the reference-point used in media. Imagine their reaction when I tell them we are set to pass them this year, when it comes to murders per 100k inhabitants. Disbelief, will not process, syntax error.
It's the same when you ask "What exactly has Trump done that's so bad?". They don't know, because media won't go into detail.
Same as when the typical American comments on "Europeans are...", I might add. Often, it's so wrong its laughable. But that's largely because the propaganda - here and in the USA - has been since the Cold War ended that we're really just a USE, really we are. That's the EU propaganda in action - there's zero public support in any nation here, for a United States of Europe. Support for the EU rarely tops 50% in most polls, dep. on how it's phrased of course.
Hope this helps! I'm off with the wife and the dogs, into the forest. It's pic-nic weather today!
The USA authorities for sure would not let me into America even if I wanted to go there and could afford to. Mind you if by some bizarre chance I was at a USA customs about to visit USA and they just glanced at my passport and waved me through id be so offended. What! All that incendiary and abusive and I'm true stuff I've written on Substack about your political administration and the CIA and you've never read it. I'm not on a CIA watch list. To you im just another harmless and clueless tourist. Now THAT would be a reality check!
Reached for comment, a local trans Hands-Off protesters said "right wing extremist violence is the most pressing issue we face today" as they-them hurled homemade explosives at a Tesla dealership.
Can't help but notice that in all other mentions of authoritarian hollow democracies, the autocrats were incredibly popular as they came into power. What happens when a disliked minority of failed elites attempts to use their playbook, insisting that they must do so to prevent said playbook from being used by the much more popular opposition?
I don't know, but I'm betting it doesn't work out the way they think it's going to work out.
Good observation. I don’t know whether to hope there is an intelligence at work behind all this or not: If so, a new dark age, if not, post-nuclear apocalypse. You say po-tah-to.
If there <is> a cringy cackling evil cabal pulling the strings, they are using the corrupt bumblers to craft the levers of repressive power, while grooming a suave and plausible authoritarian we’ve never heard of to step forward and make best use of those levers. Properly presented, there is no defense against The Shining Savior ploy; we throw ourselves at his feet every time… because something deep within the demos dreads the notion of self-government, and longs for Daddy to swoop in and fix it all.
Or, the third option occurs— a renaissance of people-driven democratic leadership arises as a storm tide, sweeping aside the dark night of kakistocracy in a flood of noble principle, restoring hope and pointing the way to a bright yeah, yeah, right. Been to Walmart lately? I don’t think the nads exist for a real patriotism these days. Sure would love to be wrong about that.
Well, I think we are where we are because the would-be elites are idiots and failures. If things were working out the way they expected, we'd be living in the shiny healthy panopticon they were predicting 20, 30, 40 years ago, and there wouldn't be much discontent (if nothing else because the chips in our brains wouldn't allow us to feel it).
So the fact that their 'benevolent' schemes for the erstwhile future present did not materialize indicates that their future schemes will also fail. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they tried the "Shining Savior," but who trusts any of them, or anybody they'd recommend, to be the savior at this point? Are they clever enough to feign opposition to sell the lie? I used to think so, but at this point I think they're what they appear to be on the surface: a bunch of arrogant, miseducated midwits with the reverse-Midas touch: everything they touch that is gold turns to shit.
I think when the dust settles we won't miss any of this. The world has been through many civilizational apocalypses. It's littered with the ruins of empires who got out over their skis or just quietly withered away. Yet we as a people and a species endure.
Well,a rather weird + psychedelic text written about 2k years ago by a man living on Patmos informs us that your Shining Saviour theory is the one. And by making everything not work and function how welcome will be (she? Probably not) be. My moneys on our Tony Blair stepping up to the Papal Throne as there seem to be indications that the office of the Papacy with its political independence of all nations,it's worldwide web of priests ie an on the ground network and it's vast wealth,all called in over the last year or so into the Vatican Treasury will be used for political purposes.
Yes, John of Patmos was either insane, writing in code, or the island has some interesting fungi. The world is certainly ripe for a larger than life unifying figure to step forward with a plan.
> " 'Daily bread rations to increase from ten ounces to four ounces, government proudly announces.' What an interesting test of permission structures this is all going to be. Of course, the point of lies that are laugh-out-loud funny in their obviousness is that they degrade and demoralize the people who pretend to believe them."
I had some occasion recently to argue that the Democrats have more or less swallowed -- hook, line, and sinker -- the transactivist mantra that "trans women are women!!11!!", and that that has to qualify as a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5". Though nice to see increasing levels of push-back on that score, probably precipitated, in large measure, by Trump's EO attempting to "restore biological truth to government":
Hard to imagine a more odious case of "degrading and demoralizing" people than insisting that they accept that Dylan Mulvaney, Bruce Jenner -- Woman of the Year!!, and "Rachel" Levine actually qualify as women, as adult human females.
The “2+2=5” strategy is about forcing people to actually believe the lie. I believe in “1984” it was the final stage of control. Same with “Women Are Men.” Such an obvious falsehood, yet so many people have come to actually believe it. At least Winston was tortured into believing it!
DEI operatives claim that the search for "correct answers" is a sin of whiteness. That includes math. Woke math teachers claim that 2 + 2 = 5 is valid, and objections are racist.
Indeed. Though it doesn't say much -- at least much that is flattering -- about those who were rather too quick to go along with or retail that lie. Low pain thresholds at least ... 🙂
Chris Bray— Yep, as you say, "'Trump is going to hit you with a stick,' warn the people who are hitting you with a stick." Most of the people who haven't figured that out haven't figured out some other rather "crushingly obvious" things, too, such as, oh say, that the "safe and effective vaccines" are anything but.
I just don't get how people can think of Trump as the "incumbent" described in the essay by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way when the left clearly has held every public institution for decades.
Because they are nice people and they LURVE everybody except YOU of course,and THEY are polite and pleasant and smile a lot and want to give ALL YOUR TAX (not theirs) to the unfortunate to pay them off.
I went to dinner last night with a family who lives in Los Angeles (mutual graduates ) . I tried to listen patiently and empathize but their logic buttttt. it was so illogical … God help us . God help Chris, who lives in the middle of this .
I have survived similar. lol. I don't get into it with people who are unable, for some reason, to engage in basic logic. They don't even seem to notice that I'm not saying anything in reply and gently changing the subject, that's the funny part. Seems they just have to regularly let off steam from deep inside their very own special dreamworld.
All of my LA friends are as far to the right, if not farther, than I am, including one who now lives in Sacramento. They are all trying to figure out ways to leave California and where to go.
Maybe all right leaning Californians should stay and work to get a Republican governor elected to dial back the craziness, recover financial logic and lower taxes. I can dream….God created so much natural beauty there.
I live in WA, and have the same dream. Problem is that most conservatives have real jobs and real families that take up most of their lives (properly), and thus tend to be reactive. The increasingly leftist WA Dems have held one party control since at least the early 2000s, and the GOP up here is…weak sauce.
At some point, I wonder if staying to fight becomes pointless, and moving to Idaho or another red state just makes sense, mentally, financially, and otherwise. The Left Coast is beautiful but increasingly a basket case.
Ah, Günter Grass, the ‚social conscience‘ of West Germany. Sniffing out Nazis everywhere, denouncing colleagues and torturing two generations of students with his ponderous writings.
Then it turned out that he had joined the Waffen SS. Voluntarily.
What matters is that enough people believe the lies. But worse, that the lies will be represented as truth in the future. How much of history is journalistic, catalogued lies that we have taken as truths today? Likely, much of our past has been misrepresented similarly and we should question everything.
A lot more of the past is falsified than we imagine. Once you start investigating and reading up you find out how fake almost all the history we are taught is
But the fraud is not in the basic facts. It's in the interpretation. So The Battle of of Hastings happened. King Harold died in and in King William didn't. In 1492 a man of Sephardic Jewish descent then living in Italy got financial backing to go in search of America. In 1497 a genoese Sea Captain living in Bristol England was hired by that cities Merchant Venturers to go in search of America. The first found The Caribbean,the other,Newfoundland. What inspired them to search,what information they had access to,how their voyages were funded,why their funders wanted to make this investment,now that's wide open to many interpretations and you can craft and pick one that accords with the worldview of your era.
And don’t forget about Romania, where voters are likely to elect a “unacceptable” candidate who will install the previous unacceptable candidate - whom they canceled an election over, with the usual legacy media narratives to describe the leading candidate, including “far right,” “disinformation,” and worse. Genuine democracies are stubborn things.
Beryl Howell today quoted Shakespeare's Henry VI in her permanent 100 page order blocking Trump from barring Perkins Coie from working in federal buildings and also yanking their security clearances. Why it took her a hundred pages I will never know, but I imagine it's related to the same psychosis and delusions of grandeur the authors you quoted are suffering from, colloquially known as severe TDS. The fact that these morons are all cut from the exact same cloth is not lost on me, and I imagine it makes them feel really good to wrap themselves so tightly in their delusions, but they are setting themselves up for a very large fall. It's all lies, and the big ones tend to explode in their faces, almost always at the perfect time.
I’m waiting patiently for good people to say “Enough!”
They did, and Trump was elected, thank God. Now we are all waiting for some arrests......and waiting...... annnnnd waiting......
I’d rather wait longer for airtight cases that will stick, rather than a bunch of perp-walks that amount to mere theatrics. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll be right where we were, pre-Nov. 2024, just ‘shorter of breath, and one day closer to death’, individually and as a society.
(Thank you, Gilmour, Waters, Wright & Mason)
Positively 4th Street is what came to my mind.
There’s no Dark Side of the Moon it’s all Dark.
Be careful what you pray (prey) for!
Check out an essay by Phil Wilson titled Us Fascist Iconography
Ha ha ha ha ha
Great little article, and it captures the essence of the blatant moves that remove political threats, across Europe and beyond. We had a crazy situation here, in Ireland, a few years ago. An election had seen the established parties decimated by the polls, and unable to form a single party government, so coalition talks commenced. The party with the largest vote, a protest vote by the people, (Sinn Fein, who were the political face of the IRA, even though they had always denied this, )desperate for change from the previous decades of power being handed from one established party to the other, were excluded from the coalition talks. On the grounds that they had been associated with the IRA, and terrorism was not to be allowed in government. This, from the two parties that developed out of the rising against the British, which eventually led to their departure, and then from the obligatory civil war that countries who had lived under British rule, seemingly had to have. So two parties that were ‘terrorists’ in their formative years, denied the newer version any power, except opposition. We have had a recent election since, and again, a cobbled together coalition government was formed, with independent ministers, and small parties siding with those old, hated parties. Once again, we are lumbered with government that nobody wanted. They have passed three bits of legislation since the new government was formed. One on a pay increase for themselves. One on a pension increase for themselves. And one to recognise a party that was thought extinct so it could fall in with this coalition. And they wonder why there is low turnout come election time. People twigged that it is all theatre. And it may have continued like this forever, but COVID woke a lot of people up, as their eyes were being called liars by the prevailing narrative, and the shoddy handling of the immigration situation has seen the normally passive, easy going manner of the Irish stretch to its limit. People have had and seen enough. The arrogance of these last decade of Irish governance, and their invisibility when making and implementing decisions, without any engagement with their people, will be their undoing. They do not know how angry people are. They will soon find out, mark my words.
Thanks for the information. Articulated and written so well, that I will be using some of the points you made in my conversations with people who are really trying to make sense of exactly how and why we are seemingly stuck with these parties.
Good luck my friend!
I scream it out for you, but there's only me. 😣
We hear you!
🤗🤗🤗
Me, too…except for the ‘patiently’
They never will because good people obey rules,respect laws and curate their friendship circles so as to exclude undesirables and as most objectors are highly undesirable,good people avoid them. So don't hold your breath.
People seem to naturally hate being wrong, or admitting that they’ve been had, and worst of all, admitting they were wrong, as well as sometimes having to say sorry in some cases. Couple all of that with a distraction industry in the form of hand held devices and social media apps that cater for every age group, and we now have algorithms forming people’s opinions on issues for them. Try and engage a young person in conversation, and there are levels of annoyance that range from mildl irritation to full on hostility, as they have to look at you rather than their phone. In some settings, you can be surrounded by people, but might as well be on your own. Perfectly curated and filtered photos of an event, taken again and again till the right ones are captured, are posted online, and then people retire from the happenings to see how many likes their snaps have received. Meanwhile, the event is carrying on, without those who have organised the thing participating. It’s sad to see. How do you tackle this? How do you get people with the concentration levels of a fruit fly to engage in political discourse? If it’s online and it’s a clip over 5 minutes long, it won’t be watched in its entirety.
we have but the ones we say it to are not listening...they have their fingers in their ears and are saying blah, blah, blah, blah...they don't want to hear us or listen to us
Similar things have happened in Romania and Brazil. It’s almost as if the conspiracy types are right and globalists worldwide are misusing their power to target nationalists and populists who oppose mass immigration and their other globalist policies.
Plus we have RFK Jr. talking about chemtrails and government complicity in child trafficking. At this point I wouldn’t be too surprised if some public figure's mask was ripped off on live TV, revealing him as a lizard person.
They don’t hate the opposition so much as they hate the people who left their team and joined the opposition.
Class traitors are usually amongst the first to be punished.
"It’s almost as if the conspiracy types are right . . . "? Almost?
It only takes six months to be the factual truth.
I try to point this out to my New England neighbors, but the nice ones call me fascist. The rest of them (the vast majority—we’re not a nice region) describe me as a kind of demon spawn sired by Josef Mengele, whelped by Lizzie Borden. (What a parent-teacher conference THAT would make!) I walk alone—I and 77,302,579 of my closest friends.
Many are blind, deaf and dumb to political realities in my neck of the woods also. I told one of the few "blue" relatives I have to whom I can fruitfully say as much, "simply, notice when people don't say anything in response to your comment. Notice the silences. There are many, many people who don't see things the way you think they do. Political reality is not what you think it is."
300 years ago those same New Englanders believed in witches.
lol what's changed?
The “oligarchs” of their time.
Now they are the witches.
But burning witches is so fun. It's what Communities are for. I speak as a yet unburned witch but it would've take much
The political left has gotten complacent through controlling dialog and narrative, and therefore falsely believe that because they’ve silenced much of their opposition that they comprise the vast majority. That’s changing and one manifestation I’ve seen in my blue leaning neighborhood is that the Kamala signs have all gone but there are plenty of Trump signs still up. It’s a polite way of giving the middle finger to manufactured consensus.
A couple of years ago two construction vehicles roared up my street (a steep hill) and through a one-way sign at a blind turn. Livid, I hopped in my car to follow them. There are kids and dogs I our ‘hood; they were going to get a piece of my mind. When I found them about a quarter mile away, I saw the Trump stickers on their trucks. Instantly, my mood changed from outraged neighbor to disappointed parent. I explained why I had followed them, and after some initial belligerence, they conceded their fault and apologized. They even offered me a beer. Our mutual bond over Trump turned a potentially explosive situation into a love fest.
Yeah and these are most likely the people driving around with stickers on their cars saying things like tolerate, or be kind, etc--some of the biggest dicks around.
Yes, lol, my favorite is ☪oe✡is✝
Mine says
☪oe✡is✝,
Ya dumb jerks!
Exactly. I'm in UK but those nice people waiting hopefully for all the other nice people to rise up,well Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a prison cell all to himself. Not many nice people bashing down the cell door to join him. Maybe - a la lanterne - all the good people (who decides) should March on Washington and storm the White House .....oh,that's been tried,- only degenerate ignorant unemployable illiterate deplorables do that. Oh shucks,better just settle down with a Krispy Creme and binge watch White Lotus then.
As usual, the Bible says it best when Isaiah wrote, more than two thousand years ago:
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.”
It's time to see some of that woe in full public display.
They say Peace,Peace when there is no Peace.
I know lots of Americans are asking, when this is the topic, "Why aren't people protesting?"
We are, but in our way, which differs from nation to nation, and doesn't get much if any media coverage (not even in our own) because said coverage would mean career suicide for the journos doing it.
Compare it to how your capitalist media covered the Black Looting and Murdering-movement a few years ago, and there you have it, or how hard they pursue the Heidi Fleiss-customer list (or Epstein files, or...).
Protest marches and riots are rare nowadays, it's not like it was 30+ years ago. Now, people instead withdraw their support from the state and its systems, including corporate capitalism, as much as they reasonably can. For Swedes, this means:
1) Migrating to SE Asia (Vietnam, Thailand) or SE Europe (Romania, Hungary)
2) Moving into the countryside; Stockholm, the capital, loses (net) about 6 000 per year and has done so for about ten years now, of Swedes with desirable educations/careers, who move from the city to within 1½ hour commuting distance. This means the city loses the taxes of the most desirable group.
3) Transfering wealth and investments overseas or at least abroad
4) Shuttering your business to bare-bones get-by minimum levels (due to taxes and regs)
And more in the same vein. The reason I call this protesting is this:
It is done mainly for political reasons, not financial (even though finance is politics). The people the system needs to keep functioning well are consciously choosing to withdraw support. You have the same tendency in the USA, but on a much larger scale. So far, the regime is trying to meet this in the stupidest ways possible. I'm sure they will, as Churchill is said to have quipped, do the right thing once every other option has been tried.
What really makes it political, is that even when incremental change is made, even when they try to actually do something right, people still won't go back to business as usual. Last time that was the case, in the 1800s, we almost had a civil war.
Remember, saying "Europe this" or "Europeans that" is about as correct as saying "Africans" unless we're just talking geography.
Most of the European persons I encounter on the internets have TDS as bad as any leftist American and seem completely oblivious to their own political scenario. More concerned about "Trump's Tariffs," than being arrested for posting memes about a middling politician. I have seen them comment about having fear of traveling to the US, because they might never get home or get arrested for criticizing the Orange Man. And they have contempt for half this country who would vote for such a man thereby expressing our hatred of Europeans.
I don't doubt it. About 1/3 (Sweden) have TDS because their only news-sources are state-media and regime-loyal capitalist media. Like having The View and The Atlantic, WaPo and MSNBC and such as your only news in the USA.
I'm a bit odd, or rare, because being retired I have nothing to lose financially or career-wise and so I can be much more outspoken than most (well, some of my comments could put me in prison, but so what?) and I have the educational background to be able to debate with a bit more insight than people who just have their high school-ed from the 1990s or even earlier and Hollywood as their source of knowledge on US politics.
On the other hand, just as many - the silent majority who's not out on the web because they have other stuff to do - really don't give two figs about the US at all, beyond celebrities and entertainment and sports. It's just that they never show up in any debates online, since they don't care, and so the ones who do (like the TDS crowd or dissidents like me) become the "face" of things.
Which obviously is the same for Americans. Most aren't online, and most don't know much more about Europe than does a random European about US internal politics.
Here's a good example: most Swedes have an image of El Salvador that was established in the 1980s/1990s, because that's the reference-point used in media. Imagine their reaction when I tell them we are set to pass them this year, when it comes to murders per 100k inhabitants. Disbelief, will not process, syntax error.
It's the same when you ask "What exactly has Trump done that's so bad?". They don't know, because media won't go into detail.
Same as when the typical American comments on "Europeans are...", I might add. Often, it's so wrong its laughable. But that's largely because the propaganda - here and in the USA - has been since the Cold War ended that we're really just a USE, really we are. That's the EU propaganda in action - there's zero public support in any nation here, for a United States of Europe. Support for the EU rarely tops 50% in most polls, dep. on how it's phrased of course.
Hope this helps! I'm off with the wife and the dogs, into the forest. It's pic-nic weather today!
"Well, some of my comments could put me in prison, but so what?"
That is the whole point.
That is why the US has the 2nd Amendment.
Unless the second amendment includes helicopter gun ships and tanks, it may not help fending off the government.
The USA authorities for sure would not let me into America even if I wanted to go there and could afford to. Mind you if by some bizarre chance I was at a USA customs about to visit USA and they just glanced at my passport and waved me through id be so offended. What! All that incendiary and abusive and I'm true stuff I've written on Substack about your political administration and the CIA and you've never read it. I'm not on a CIA watch list. To you im just another harmless and clueless tourist. Now THAT would be a reality check!
Reached for comment, a local trans Hands-Off protesters said "right wing extremist violence is the most pressing issue we face today" as they-them hurled homemade explosives at a Tesla dealership.
Cocks in Frocks are a total joke. But not funny.
Can't help but notice that in all other mentions of authoritarian hollow democracies, the autocrats were incredibly popular as they came into power. What happens when a disliked minority of failed elites attempts to use their playbook, insisting that they must do so to prevent said playbook from being used by the much more popular opposition?
I don't know, but I'm betting it doesn't work out the way they think it's going to work out.
Good observation. I don’t know whether to hope there is an intelligence at work behind all this or not: If so, a new dark age, if not, post-nuclear apocalypse. You say po-tah-to.
If there <is> a cringy cackling evil cabal pulling the strings, they are using the corrupt bumblers to craft the levers of repressive power, while grooming a suave and plausible authoritarian we’ve never heard of to step forward and make best use of those levers. Properly presented, there is no defense against The Shining Savior ploy; we throw ourselves at his feet every time… because something deep within the demos dreads the notion of self-government, and longs for Daddy to swoop in and fix it all.
Or, the third option occurs— a renaissance of people-driven democratic leadership arises as a storm tide, sweeping aside the dark night of kakistocracy in a flood of noble principle, restoring hope and pointing the way to a bright yeah, yeah, right. Been to Walmart lately? I don’t think the nads exist for a real patriotism these days. Sure would love to be wrong about that.
Well, I think we are where we are because the would-be elites are idiots and failures. If things were working out the way they expected, we'd be living in the shiny healthy panopticon they were predicting 20, 30, 40 years ago, and there wouldn't be much discontent (if nothing else because the chips in our brains wouldn't allow us to feel it).
So the fact that their 'benevolent' schemes for the erstwhile future present did not materialize indicates that their future schemes will also fail. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they tried the "Shining Savior," but who trusts any of them, or anybody they'd recommend, to be the savior at this point? Are they clever enough to feign opposition to sell the lie? I used to think so, but at this point I think they're what they appear to be on the surface: a bunch of arrogant, miseducated midwits with the reverse-Midas touch: everything they touch that is gold turns to shit.
I think when the dust settles we won't miss any of this. The world has been through many civilizational apocalypses. It's littered with the ruins of empires who got out over their skis or just quietly withered away. Yet we as a people and a species endure.
I think that is an optimistic view, and I heartily commend you for it.
Well,a rather weird + psychedelic text written about 2k years ago by a man living on Patmos informs us that your Shining Saviour theory is the one. And by making everything not work and function how welcome will be (she? Probably not) be. My moneys on our Tony Blair stepping up to the Papal Throne as there seem to be indications that the office of the Papacy with its political independence of all nations,it's worldwide web of priests ie an on the ground network and it's vast wealth,all called in over the last year or so into the Vatican Treasury will be used for political purposes.
Yes, John of Patmos was either insane, writing in code, or the island has some interesting fungi. The world is certainly ripe for a larger than life unifying figure to step forward with a plan.
> " 'Daily bread rations to increase from ten ounces to four ounces, government proudly announces.' What an interesting test of permission structures this is all going to be. Of course, the point of lies that are laugh-out-loud funny in their obviousness is that they degrade and demoralize the people who pretend to believe them."
I had some occasion recently to argue that the Democrats have more or less swallowed -- hook, line, and sinker -- the transactivist mantra that "trans women are women!!11!!", and that that has to qualify as a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5". Though nice to see increasing levels of push-back on that score, probably precipitated, in large measure, by Trump's EO attempting to "restore biological truth to government":
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/women-soccer-uk-transgender-ban-1.7523621
Hard to imagine a more odious case of "degrading and demoralizing" people than insisting that they accept that Dylan Mulvaney, Bruce Jenner -- Woman of the Year!!, and "Rachel" Levine actually qualify as women, as adult human females.
The “2+2=5” strategy is about forcing people to actually believe the lie. I believe in “1984” it was the final stage of control. Same with “Women Are Men.” Such an obvious falsehood, yet so many people have come to actually believe it. At least Winston was tortured into believing it!
Winston Smith was an adult. They don’t have to torture grade schoolers.
DEI operatives claim that the search for "correct answers" is a sin of whiteness. That includes math. Woke math teachers claim that 2 + 2 = 5 is valid, and objections are racist.
Egyptians were using complex math like 3000 years ago. I guess ancient middle eastern and Aftican peoples were white supremacists before it was cool
Indeed. Though it doesn't say much -- at least much that is flattering -- about those who were rather too quick to go along with or retail that lie. Low pain thresholds at least ... 🙂
Chris Bray— Yep, as you say, "'Trump is going to hit you with a stick,' warn the people who are hitting you with a stick." Most of the people who haven't figured that out haven't figured out some other rather "crushingly obvious" things, too, such as, oh say, that the "safe and effective vaccines" are anything but.
I just don't get how people can think of Trump as the "incumbent" described in the essay by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way when the left clearly has held every public institution for decades.
Because they are nice people and they LURVE everybody except YOU of course,and THEY are polite and pleasant and smile a lot and want to give ALL YOUR TAX (not theirs) to the unfortunate to pay them off.
I went to dinner last night with a family who lives in Los Angeles (mutual graduates ) . I tried to listen patiently and empathize but their logic buttttt. it was so illogical … God help us . God help Chris, who lives in the middle of this .
I have survived similar. lol. I don't get into it with people who are unable, for some reason, to engage in basic logic. They don't even seem to notice that I'm not saying anything in reply and gently changing the subject, that's the funny part. Seems they just have to regularly let off steam from deep inside their very own special dreamworld.
^^Like!^^
All of my LA friends are as far to the right, if not farther, than I am, including one who now lives in Sacramento. They are all trying to figure out ways to leave California and where to go.
Maybe all right leaning Californians should stay and work to get a Republican governor elected to dial back the craziness, recover financial logic and lower taxes. I can dream….God created so much natural beauty there.
We would, but the homelessness, expense and high taxes are making it very difficult to stay…
I live in WA, and have the same dream. Problem is that most conservatives have real jobs and real families that take up most of their lives (properly), and thus tend to be reactive. The increasingly leftist WA Dems have held one party control since at least the early 2000s, and the GOP up here is…weak sauce.
At some point, I wonder if staying to fight becomes pointless, and moving to Idaho or another red state just makes sense, mentally, financially, and otherwise. The Left Coast is beautiful but increasingly a basket case.
Ah, Günter Grass, the ‚social conscience‘ of West Germany. Sniffing out Nazis everywhere, denouncing colleagues and torturing two generations of students with his ponderous writings.
Then it turned out that he had joined the Waffen SS. Voluntarily.
He was compensating for the fact he went with the herd, covered his shame by destroying others.
A leftist.
beautifully said.
How contemptible.
That was a real career "crash and burn" of yore.
Well, he investigated himself and discovered that his conscience was clear. All good.
lolololololololol
What matters is that enough people believe the lies. But worse, that the lies will be represented as truth in the future. How much of history is journalistic, catalogued lies that we have taken as truths today? Likely, much of our past has been misrepresented similarly and we should question everything.
A lot more of the past is falsified than we imagine. Once you start investigating and reading up you find out how fake almost all the history we are taught is
But the fraud is not in the basic facts. It's in the interpretation. So The Battle of of Hastings happened. King Harold died in and in King William didn't. In 1492 a man of Sephardic Jewish descent then living in Italy got financial backing to go in search of America. In 1497 a genoese Sea Captain living in Bristol England was hired by that cities Merchant Venturers to go in search of America. The first found The Caribbean,the other,Newfoundland. What inspired them to search,what information they had access to,how their voyages were funded,why their funders wanted to make this investment,now that's wide open to many interpretations and you can craft and pick one that accords with the worldview of your era.
Competitive authoritarianism is not stable. If you can suppress a party, you can suppress an opponent. Ask Trotsky.
I have felt a disturbance in the force, as if a billions souls suddenly cried out and were NOT silenced.
There’s a reckoning on the horizon, like a supersonic change approaching silently ahead of the sonic boom.
I know it.
The air is full of daggers. I feel it a lot lately. But then I am poking the bear a lot. He's not a Russian bear. He's a USA grizzly.
And don’t forget about Romania, where voters are likely to elect a “unacceptable” candidate who will install the previous unacceptable candidate - whom they canceled an election over, with the usual legacy media narratives to describe the leading candidate, including “far right,” “disinformation,” and worse. Genuine democracies are stubborn things.