Macaroni and Davos

The ZMan has a very interesting article at takimag.  As is his habit he edifies us about a 17th century English fad among the rich called macaroni, ” In mid-18th-century England, wealthy young British men began to adopt an outlandish fashion style known as the macaroni style. They wore giant powdered wigs with tiny hats on the top that could only be removed with the point of a sword. Their clothes were equally garish, made from expensive materials from the Continent. They adopted a highly affected personal style that was self-mocking and absurd.

He then goes on to point out how this affected behavior resembles the habit of our elites to espouse outlandish causes like transgenderism just to show that they are different from hoi polloi (the many).

I like his ending, “The emergence of a ridiculous class in an empire is the proverbial bell that rings at the top of a cycle. When elements of the elite begin making war on the rules that make the elite possible, it is only a matter of time before everyone does the same. This is what we are seeing in the Global American Empire. It is now ruled by ridiculous people who care more about mocking the lower classes than doing their duty. It is just a matter of time before they follow similar phenomena to the dustbin of history.”

I fervently hope he is right about that.

The Crisis of the 21st Century

The Twentieth Century was the American Century.  And the Ruling Elite created the American Dream to fuel it.  They fed us the Walt Disney/Norman Rockwell version to get us to fight World War II and then they handed us the Right Stuff version to get to the moon and beat the Soviets.

But somewhere near the end of the last century this elite decided that they really didn’t want to be Americans.  They wanted to be the masters of the universe and rule Planet Earth in its entirety.  We got a preview of this when George H. W. Bush spoke of the “new world order.”  Well, the cat is now thoroughly out of the bag.  Our services are no longer required.  The people who own most of the wealth and control everything of importance are saying in no uncertain terms to get lost.

And to be totally honest my first impulse is to say goodbye.  Who wants to be somewhere you’re not wanted?  But as a practical consideration where can I go?  I guess I can return to the land of my ancestors.  I hear the pasta there is really good.  But the problem is that after four generations you become the place you’re from.  I’ll always be a twentieth century American.  That was the world I grew up in and knew.  I wouldn’t know how to be an Italian at this point if I tried for the rest of my life.  And the same goes double for anyplace else.  Sure, I might be able to make a living and I might be able to find a place there but it would never be home.  Leaving this country would be the last desperate act of a man with no other choice.  And I assume this is the case for tens of millions of other Americans who are no longer welcome in the land they were born in.  Where can they go?  The answer is nowhere.  We’re stuck.

What our betters hope happens to us is a quick death.  Their best case is opioid overdose.  The worst case is a marginal life as a welfare case with a shortened lifespan and no descendants.  This is the fate of people that no longer fit in with the plan.  And they’ve already made a decent start to the plan.  Lots of devastated areas of the rust belt are curling up and dying.  Upstate New York, Western Pennsylvania, large swaths of Appalachia, the upper Midwest and various places around the country are shocking remnants of what they were fifty years ago.  Some of them are almost depopulated.

But something happened back in 2016 that wasn’t supposed to happen.  Donald Trump held up a mirror to men like Jeb Bush and John Kasich and exposed them for the con men that they were.  They were in on the racket and were meant to block the emergency exit that people flee to when the building is on fire.  In the past when the Democrats got tired of the working-class people the people could go to the Republicans and get relief.  But the Bushes were given the franchise by the Democrats to hold that exit closed.  Both George Bushes did an excellent job at that station.  Now it was Jeb’s turn but Trump blew his cover.  He told us the true story.  And we got four years of relief and daylight.  We got a reprieve.

But in 2020 the Deep State cemented up the emergency exit and here we are.  We’re stuck inside a burning house and there’s no way out.  If anyone is going to save us it’s going to be ourselves.  No help is coming from Washington.  That’s where the fire is coming from.  If no one steps forward to lead us out then the only thing left is to jump out a window.  And when there is no other choice that’s what you do.  That’s what I consider leaving the country is.  It’s jumping out the window of a burning building.

But here’s the thing about arson.  If the victims survive the fire, they’re going to come looking for the arsonist.  And there’s a chance his house is made of wood too.  Our masters have depended on the fact that we’re too busy trying to raise our families and live our lives to notice that our masters don’t like us anymore.  Well, we know that now and maybe we’ll find some new masters.  And maybe the old ones are going to go where mobs usually send aristocrats.  Why let a good crisis go to waste?

Good-bye To All That

I borrowed the title of this post from a book written by Robert Graves after the end of WW I.  Graves was referring to the smashing of the pre-war civilization in Britain after the horrors of the trench had discredited all the institutions that had led England into and kept it’s young men trapped in the meat grinder that was that war.

World War I had disillusioned a whole generation of men on the competency and legitimacy of the social order that had sent their generation to their deaths.  The fitness of the ruling class had been exposed as an illusion.  This radicalized the population and undermined the control that the old upper-class order had formerly possessed.

In a similar way, the Elites in both the Democrat and Republican parties and in the institutions that they control like the media, the federal agencies, academia and the corporate boardrooms have lost all legitimacy and competency in the minds of the normal members of the American public.

They’ve shown themselves to be completely incompetent at performing the functions they supposedly are experts at.  They can’t win wars.  They can’t be trusted to manage a pandemic.  They can’t maintain the economy of the most prosperous country on the face of the Earth.

The only thing they are competent at is dividing people into warring factions and rigging fraudulent elections.

If tomorrow, ISIS-K took General MIlley captive and demanded some large amount of cash, like fifty or a hundred bucks to get him back alive, sure I’d probably say we should pay it but I’d definitely recommend that we hold out for a price reduction.  But if they catch Pelosi, I’d tell them they can keep her.  I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for her.

So when the next atrocity occurs, when some Afghan refugee that they plunk down in San Francisco blows up the local gay bar in the name of ISIS, well, they can send the CIA or the FBI to Afghanistan to straighten things out themselves.  It’s not going to be my grandsons going.  I can tell you that for sure.

And that goes for the Ukraine or Belarus or Myanmar or any other “critical” hot spot anywhere on this planet.  If human rights are being wronged or women aren’t feeling empowered or LGBTQ people are having their feelings hurt, I recommend they call Putin or Xi.  I’ve lost all sympathy and motivation.  All of my sympathy and interest is concentrated on taking care of my own.  And anyone who wants to be included in that set, more or less, has to agree with me on what things are important.  And everyone else is on his own.

I used to be the most jingoistic American patriot I knew.  I thought Iraq and Afghanistan was payback for 9-11.  I imagined that George W Bush was going to hammer the bastards that attacked us so they’d never come back again.  Instead, he invited them into our country in unprecedented numbers and killed off our soldiers in an effort to make the middle-east into middle America.  And now they want us to care about Afghani refugees.  Let them go live with George Bush.

Being disillusioned is a gut-wrenching process.  But it also provides clarity and eventually that is valuable.  It won’t be so easy for the politicians to manipulate us next time.  And it won’t cost us as much money when we don’t have to pay to build up third-world hell-holes into modern countries.  Let the Iranians pay for the Afghanis to have internet access.  Let the Russians and the Chinese build and maintain sewage systems in Zimbabwe.

Come to think of it, let Merkel and Macron pay for the tanks to keep Putin out of Berlin and Paris.  I no longer see any rationale in maintaining those dying cultures.  They’ve already self-suicided by opening the floodgates to the third world.  I’m more interested in places like Hungary and Poland who take care of their own people.  I admire those countries and hope some areas of our own country will do similar things.

So, excuse me if I don’t watch the Olympics to cheer on the American athletes as they take a knee or turn their backs on the American flag.  Pardon me if I don’t support whatever charity is flying the rainbow flag over their headquarters.  Forgive me if I burst out laughing when some guy in a sun dress comes on tv to tell me how to raise my family.

I’ve said good-bye to all that and am ready to turn the page.

What Portion Have We in Harvard and Wall Street? – To Your Tents, O Deplorables!

In the King James Version at 1 Kings 12 the people of Israel receive Solomon’s son Rehoboam’s reply to their request to treat them more gently.

“13And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men’s counsel that they gave him; 14And spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 15Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat. 16So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. 17But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them. 18Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. Therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem. 19So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.”

Or to quote from a less hallowed but fairly popular source “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

I find the analogy of this to our present situation.  The descendants of the Puritans are the Elites that run and own much of the country.  They live in the blue states and send their kids to the Ivy League schools and run the Fortune 500 companies and infest the media companies.  They have told us that we are unworthy.  They want to chastise us with scorpions.  They have altered the deal and we should consider ourselves lucky if they let us exist at all.

Well, maybe it’s time we walk away from these masters of the universe and attend to our own affairs.  We don’t run multi-national corporations or sit on the Supreme Court.  But we have parents and children and we love the life that God put in us.  What portion have we in Harvard and Wall Street?  Neither have we inheritance in the Sons of the Mayflower.  To your tents, O Deplorables.  Now see to thine own house, Jeb Bush.

Wherever we find ourselves in positions of majority we need to begin the process of taking control of our own lives.  We will have to push back against the toxic narratives and destructive policies that Washington inflicts on us and our children.  Hopefully someone like Ron DeSantis or some other red state leader will step forward and recognize that this is the perfect time to begin the process of saying no to Washington.  The dispute over social media discrimination is the likeliest place where a break with Washington can have a meaningful outcome.  Punishing Facebook or Twitter seems to be within the power of a governor and state legislature and could let these companies know that their immunity from consequences is over.

We are Americans.  That used to mean we were free men.  I think we should remember that and try to make it mean something again.  Come on you supposed leaders, do something right.

Political Realities of America – Part 1

After what we’ve seen on display during the last four years it seems clear to me that the people in charge of the Democrat party have a stranglehold on almost all the levers of power that exist at the national level in the United States.  And more than that, they control the majority of the power at the state and local level.

It’s probably easier to name the ones they don’t control.  The Republicans control the legislatures and state houses of about half the states and have a hair thin majority in the US Senate.  That’s it.  Our side has almost none of the major media companies, corporations, universities, non-profits, professional societies, unions, banks, financial institutions, publishers or any of the departments of the bureaucracy that we call the Deep State.  Even the Supreme Court that we supposedly have appointed by a six to three margin heaps defeat after defeat on us.  We don’t even control the capital cities of the states that we do hold.  Basically, every city large enough to have a welfare population is controlled by the Democrats.

This is not a new situation.  This has been the status quo for as long as there has been a United States.  The descendants of the New England Puritans have been expanding and consolidating their control over the areas that they’ve colonized since they got here in the seventeenth century.  They control the Northeast, the Great Lakes region, The Pacific Coast and they’ve been expanding off of those areas continuously.  Now they’ve reached down to Virginia in the east and the wretched Californians that ruined their own state are destroying Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and soon enough, the rest of the Mountain West.

They’ve got a very effective model.  It has nothing to do with freedom, equality or anything like that.  It’s strictly a matter of gaining control by power politics.  They’ll paper it over by claiming that they are fighting the evil racists or whatever bogeyman they’ve concocted to bamboozle the simple-minded poor people they pay off for votes.  But if buying votes isn’t enough, they have perfected stealing elections by fabricating votes in urban districts.

All of this has been on open display since Election Day.  Unprecedented vote totals were unleashed in the early hours of November 4th as soon as it became clear that President Trump was going to win in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin.  Not even a fig leaf was maintained that a fair election was going on.  The Republican poll watchers were forced out and the trucks backed up to the buildings and poured in the bogus ballots by the hundreds of thousands.

At this point in the process it’s entirely possible that the Supreme Court will be so ashamed of allowing a presidential election be stolen in plain view that they will do something to stop it.  I’d say it’s fifty-fifty.  John Roberts is a worthless, spineless traitor so if we win it will be at best a 5-4 vote.  But even if the President prevails and we get a four-year reprieve it is still necessary to look realistically at the way this country works and plan accordingly.  And if the Supreme Court stabs us in the back again then we have two months to decide how we will deal with the facts on the ground.

I think we have three choices.  Fold, flee or fight.  Surrender to the hive, leave the areas under their control, or fight them.

And I’m guessing it’s not completely clear to anyone which of these choices is best.

So, let’s look first at Option 1, Fold.  Think about it.  You know plenty of people who don’t believe in the leftist madness but who have responsible positions in the corporate and government circles who have to spout the party line and burn incense to Baal.  Their kids go to Yale and Columbia and they write their memos that pledge allegiance to diversity and inclusion and make sure they have a man in a dress working for them in the HR department.  Sure, they have to choke back the cognitive dissonance when they say the things that are expected of them.  But they get paid very well to do it.  They get all the perks that go along with membership in the lower ranks of the managerial elite.  They live in safe neighborhoods; their kids go to the best schools and all the right doors get opened to them in all avenues of life.  They belong to the right clubs and organizations.  They vacation on Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons and they get invited to all the best parties and gatherings.

I even know people who say they can keep up this charade while still protecting their kids from the madness that goes along with the propaganda and proselytizing that the sexual deviants that run our public schools practice.  Maybe they can.  Maybe it’s possible to live inside the hive in complete disguise and maintain a normal life.  If it is then my hat’s off to these people.  I don’t seem to be able to do it.  Listening to the proclamations from the Ministries of Peace, Truth and Love are just too much for my little brain to ignore.  But I’m not everyone.  So, there are probably a bunch of people who will take the blue pill and get on with their lives inside the hive.

How about Option 2, Flee.  Let’s define that a little bit.  It could mean moving from a blue city to the surrounding rural areas of a red state.  Or it could be moving from a blue state to a red state.  Or it could mean leaving the country.  All of these are calculations that a man has to make.  Leaving a city is the easiest choice.  It’s a thing you’d do even if the city wasn’t a political prison.  Lots of folks have always left cities in order to take advantage of the lower costs and property values associated with getting out of the crowded and expensive cities.  But I can personally attest to the unsatisfying result of moving from a blue city to a blue state suburb.  It will lessen your chances of suffering violent crime and give your kids half decent schools but that’s about it.  Now these first two choices end up with someone living in a red state.  That is something.  And if the state is deep red then you will notice a big change.  Living in a place where you’re still allowed to say what you really think and surrounded by mostly normal people is like a dream come true for a deplorable living in a blue state.  And in such a place the schools will be much less destructive of normal ideas about the world.  But even in red states you’re going to deal with the realities of living in America.  Affirmative action and all the other programs that take away the freedom of association and choice that we’re supposed to enjoy is still the law of the land.  So, the move isn’t a cure for the American condition just a less serious case.  And as the leftists tighten the screws through the courts and their corporate allies it will be less and less of an improvement.  Now the only way to completely escape the leftists is to leave the country.  But that brings up a separate predicament.  Where exactly is it better than here?  Moving to Canada or Australia or Europe is at best a mixed situation.  None of those places have even the pretense of a bill of rights.  And all of them are run by elites that have approximately the same program as our masters here.  There may be some places that would be less oppressive like some of the eastern European countries but think of the dislocation you and your family would experience being a stranger in a strange land.  But I know many people who are thinking of exactly this trade-off.

And now we come to Option 3, Fight.  But that’s a long story and I’ll keep that for Part 2.  But I will say that the first two option are pretty awful for someone who believes in the ideals that America is supposed to represent.  You could see why staying and fighting would be the option you would want to take.  We’ll talk about that next.

In Bad Faith – When the Chumps Catch On

In business and law there is a term “in good faith.”  It’s a translation from the Latin bona fide.  Basically, it means that the desire to defraud is not present.  One specific application of the concept has to do with a buyer who receives property from a seller who does not have a clear title to that property.  The established precedent in all fifty states is that if a good faith buyer has purchased property that is afterward shown not to have been owned by the seller then the buyer keeps the property and the seller is legally responsible to the real owner for the illegal sale.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this.  When our ancestors came to this country, we were sold a bill of goods.  In fact, we were sold the Bill of Rights.  And in exchange for these we fought in their wars and paid their taxes and helped build their mighty nation.  But now we find out that those things weren’t for us.  Freedom is only for the rich and well connected.  The rest of us can have our speech restricted and our property is dependent on the vagaries of what the government decides it wants from us.  If you want to leave the state because the taxes are outrageously high then that government will order that you surrender a huge chunk of the sale price as a penalty for trying to leave.  And the most fundamental right for Americans, freedom of religion, is the most endangered.  A judge will tell you that what you believe is bigoted hate.  And we’re told that these changes in our rights are happening because the original Constitution was illegal.  It shouldn’t have allowed us to say what we want to and think what we want to or prosper by our hard work.  Those things are evil and racist and homophobic and misogynistic and transphobic and xenophobic and blah, blah, blah.  So just forget all that freedom stuff and start getting with the program.

But guess what?  We bought into the program in good faith.  Just because the elites have decided that they couldn’t sell us what we bought doesn’t mean we have to give it back.  In fact, we’re the good faith owners of the American Dream.  Now from a practical point of view we have a problem because the elites have promised the contents of our dream to the next bunch of chumps that are coming along.  Well, the way the law works we don’t have to give it back.  And guess what?  The ones who sold us the property are the ones who are liable for the other claims.  So, if these fine, rich, ethically scrupulous, leaders of the community, the ruling elite of the greatest country on earth, want to give all these new illegal aliens all the comforts of home then they should hand over their land and money and privileges.

But of course, that’s not how they look at it.  Chumps don’t get any consideration.  They’re just a means to an end.  They’re a revolving door of indentured servants to be manipulated and tossed aside as circumstances allow.  They will always be able to justify to anyone listening including themselves why they are in the right and we deserve whatever abuse they think up.

The truth is if we want what we paid for we’ll have to fight to get it.  That’s really how these things work.  And if we’re not willing to do that then we had better leave or get used to being slaves.  Those are the only three paths.  Pick one.

Farage and Trump

President Trump is scheduled to spend four days (June Third through Sixth) in Britain to commemorate the seventy fifth anniversary of D-Day.  Queen Elizabeth will throw a state banquet at which all the parliamentary leaders will attend.  But the real meeting that everyone is interested in is not supposed to happen.  Prime Minister May has uninvited conservative gadfly Nigel Farage to Buckingham Palace and so the only way that the meeting will happen is through Trump’s and Farage’s own organizations setting it up.  How ironic is that?  The two leaders who demonstrably represent the will of the common people of their respective nations have to constantly battle against the elitists in their own parties to achieve any part of the agenda the people have mandated they accomplish.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the refusal of the Tory leadership to honor the Brexit vote.  The people of the United Kingdom voted unequivocally to leave the European Union.  But here we are three years later and nothing has been accomplished.  The Tories under Theresa May’s inept leadership have botched the Brexit effort and at this point the Remainers in their ranks are poised to prevent Brexit, even though it will doom the Tories’ majority in Parliament, leaving the Left to run the country.

But jumping into the fray is Nigel Farage.  He was the moving spirit behind the original Brexit movement but after its passage he dropped out of the public eye.  But three years of dithering by the Tories was too much for him.  Only six weeks before the British EU parliamentary elections he formed a new party called (of course) the Brexit Party and won more seats than the Tories and Labor combined.  Using this victory as a second Brexit vote he is now warning the Tories that if they don’t accomplish Brexit by Halloween, he’ll be waiting for them in the next general election and sweep them and the Labor party out of power.

Theresa May has declared her resignation and there should be a new Tory prime minister by the middle of July.  If it’s Boris Johnson or another Brexiteer it’s possible that Brexit can be accomplished.  Perhaps Farage’s threat will be enough to convince the Remainers that their intransigence will energize the country’s majority to sweep them out of Parliament and give the government over to the Brexit Party.  It’s hard to say.

Either way we see Nigel Farage as an outsider from the business world jumping into the political arena to wrest control of the levers of power away from a supposedly conservative elite that has decided to thwart the will of its constituents in order to cozy up to the very globalist establishment bureaucracy from which Britons voted to escape.  Well, if that’s not essentially Donald Trump with a British accent I don’t know what is.

I think it would be useful to have a meeting between Trump, Farage and Boris Johnson.  Farage and Johnson, if they coordinate their activities can make the Brexit a reality.  Trump can be the facilitator to help convince the British people that the Hard Brexit horror story that the elites have told them is only a fiction.  By highlighting the booming American economy, he can prove to them that managed decline doesn’t have to be the fate of the middle class.

Of course, it’s risky for politicians to be seen getting too cozy with foreign leaders (unless they’re Leftists of course) even if it’s the President of the United States.  But in this particular case I think meeting with Farage will be very good for both Trump and Farage.  Seeing Farage’s stock increase will tend to focus Johnson’s mind on how important it is to get Brexit done.  And indeed, accomplishing Brexit is virtually the only way the Tories have of staying in power.

But personally, what I’d love to hear is what these two men will say to each other when the video cameras and microphones aren’t on.  Both of them have demonstrated that they understand how to reach the middle-class people directly.  And because of that both have been attacked mercilessly by their opponents in the Media and the governing elites of both parties.  I have to imagine they would enjoy just comparing notes and telling war stories.  It would be like two magicians comparing experiences and trading secrets.  Maybe Trump and Farage can reach out to other populist leaders within the anglosphere and beyond (e.g., Italy) and coordinate strategy against the globalists.  They could form a sort of anti-globalist UN.  They could call it the DN, the Disunited Nations.

So let’s hope that Trump’s trip to Britain provides some positive energy for both the American and British Right.  And let’s hope that the new Tory prime minister works with Farage to convince the Remainers to support Brexit (or else).

Trump and Farage point to the peril that threatens our world.  The elites have gamed democracy.  And the only thing that stands in the way of some kind of repressive, decadent, roman empire-like world is a small group of independent businessmen who are defying their own class and providing the middle class with a voice and a champion.  It can’t be reassuring to know that everything we believe in is hanging on the thread of a handful of men.  But let’s pray that our luck holds out long enough to battle back from the edge of the cliff.  And let’s make sure Trump appoints a worthy successor.  After all, unlike Britain where a prime minister can stay in power for decades, an American president only gets eight years at most.

18FEB2019 – American Greatnesss Post of the Day – Foggy Crossroads by Angelo Codevilla

Codevilla reviews what he thinks the choices are for President Trump.  Either deliver the Wall and Immigration Law enforcement or lose in 2020.  He also discusses the bi-party ruling class and what part they play in our awful politics.  No surprises here.  Just the outline of what to look for going into the coming election cycle.

Foggy Crossroads

25JAN2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Desperate Embrace at Europe’s Core by Angelo Codevilla

This was a development I hadn’t heard about.  The leaders of France and Germany have agreed to join their foreign policies completely including France’s veto on the UN Security Council.  In other words France and Germany will confer with each other and agree on a response whenever a third nation is in communication with either of the two.  Considering that the present leaders of both France and Germany are both despised by their citizens I can only imagine this will enrage their voters even more.  The line between the people and the elite is becoming a glowing flashpoint.

Desperate Embrace At Europe’s Core

The Z-Man Has an Essay on the The Economics Of Democratic Empire

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=15929

He compares the economics of monarchical empires to the modern multi-ethnic states like the Soviet Union and present day America.  Z-Man says that the monarchical empires valued their vassals because they produced wealth for the emperor but that the USA openly exploits the “social capital” of its society for short term gain.  His thesis is that this is a new situation and it is not clear whether this exploitation can be made stable or whether it will completely undermine the state and collapse the whole enterprise.

Pretty depressing reading for the holidays but well thought out.