Tag: ZMan

A Friday Lecture and the Laboratory of Real Life

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I spent my morning exercise time listening once again to the ZMan’s Friday podcast.  And once again it was a very illuminating hour.  Ostensibly it was about the degrading of college football.  But really that was only a single example of corporatism’s ability to dissolve the underlying value of an institution or business and convert it to short term gain.  And the whole talk is extremely well done.  It’s like a lecture by a college professor who knows his material pat and who also happens to be a gifted orator.  I’ll stop raving about it now but if you are interested in hearing how we’ve gotten into the mess we’re in with the managerial state swallowing the federal government and just about every other institution give it a listen.

After that I read through the news and my Twitter (I mean X) feed.  It was a combination of more bad news from Washington and some small bits of hope from some of the less crazy parts of the nation.  On balance I think the nation as a whole is growing tired of Biden’s America.  I haven’t seen any organizing in order to begin taking control of things above the state level yet.  I’ve been hoping that more cooperative action would begin.  But maybe the 2024 election is actually a barrier to people thinking in those terms until after it’s lost.  Maybe after the expected election fraud returns Biden to the White House next year people will realize that waiting to take back the federal government is a fool’s errand.  And that they have to control the things that they have power over and work around the things they don’t.

A nice summer day today so I tried to find some macro shots (insects and flowers) but there weren’t many bugs at all.  It’s as if the insects were on strike.  Even the mosquitoes and deer flies were missing.  But I found a dead toad and set it up as bait.  Later on, I saw a carrion beetle sizing the toad up.  We’ll see what develops.

I also tried to get some shots of Camera Girl’s free-loading turkey flock but they were MIA.  A little later I think I saw the reason.  An adult fox showed up and made the rounds.  It was a good-sized animal but the fur was very light in color.  I asked Camera Girl if she thought it was one of the gray foxes but she said it had red in its fur.  Now I’m color blind but I could tell it was very light.  It almost looked like a cream color to me.  Well, anyway, I hope it didn’t eat up all of Camera Girl’s gobbling welfare recipients.  She really does like them and I will admit I hear they eat lots of ticks and that’s always a welcome situation.

Now I don’t pretend to know how much impact a thoroughly cynical electorate could have on the regime of the United States but I definitely think that it does have an impact on the behavior of the people who live as captives under this regime.  One of the impacts is already being seen.  A migration out of the blue states and into the red states is ongoing.  People are doing everything they can to minimize their exposure to dysfunction.  The same kind of thing is going on in other aspects of life.  People are avoiding the public schools.  They’re looking for colleges that aren’t propaganda internment camps.  They’re avoiding the chaotic blue-run cities.  And lately they’re even trying to punish companies that hate them through boycotts like the one that’s currently strangling Bud Light to death.

So maybe the grand total of all these small changes in behavior might have some bigger effects.  All this remains to be seen.  But watching this stuff is the only show in town.  After all, saying the wrong thing will get you dragged off to the gulag or even shot in the street by the Stasi.  Much better doing the things within your purview and just observing how stupid and obnoxious all these feds really are.

So, the summer is winding down and there are a few more get togethers scheduled.  The grandkids have been away this week at the beach and it sounds like they had a lot of fun.  Now school is imminent and we’ll see if they can spend the last week or two in the pool while their parents scramble to get things done.  I’ve had my one-on-ones with them and watched as much Godzilla and Jurassic Park as an alleged grownup possibly can and still survive.  Soon it will be shifting over to Fall and the approach of Halloween.  There are still a couple who haven’t been initiated into the classics of Universal’s Monster movies of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s.

I guess that’s enough for now.  Enjoy your day.

04AUG2023 – Dissident Clarity, Home Maintenance and the Art of Surviving the Apocalypse

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Friday morning is one of my favorite times.  I usually get to spend an hour or so in the home gym and I usually listen to the ZMan’s Friday podcast.  And today was no exception.  As I said I’m changing up my exercise routine so it wasn’t routine but I was still able to pay attention as the Voice of Saruman declaimed on the workings, or rather, the non-workings of the American political system.

But he changed it up a little and this time he played devil’s advocate and tried to describe what it would take to fix our political system.  Or, more accurately, he explained what would happen if we tried.  And I think he was relatively even-handed in his estimation of what it would take to change the Republican party into an honest representative of the American Right.

And then he ended off this discussion by talking about what happens if the Uni-party continues on, in full control of the country.  He gives four alternatives.

  • The Uni-party consolidates its control and produces a stable and powerful regime that rules in perpetuity.
  • The Uni-party continues to struggle and internal forces within the power structure create reforms to address the more dysfunctional policies of the Left.
  • The Uni-party continues to struggle and a rogue component of the Uni-party performs a coup that forces reforms that shake up the status quo.
  • The peasants revolt and burn the whole damn thing down.

I found the tenor of the whole discussion extremely moderate and reasonable.  In fact, it occurred to me that the ZMan was risking his standing as a dweller on the fringe.  Someone might accuse him of not being crazy.  Hopefully, word won’t leak out.

Afterward as I mulled over his words, I continued with my repair of the lock on my sliding glass door.  As I described the other day, the latch on the inside of the door broke off and the replacement handle I bought at the local hardware store didn’t fit.  So, I went on line and bought a new latch.  It was supposed to be a direct replacement but that was a lie.  Now I’m going to buy a whole new set-up; handles, lock, latch mechanism and hardware and start from scratch.  I anticipate a disaster.  But at least temporarily I can lock the door at night to keep the werewolves, vampires and ghouls at bay.  I think Camera Girl is starting to lose faith in my mechanical aptitude.  Confidentially, so am I.  I realized I had mislaid my claw hammer.  I’ve had the thing for forty some odd years and I really don’t use it that often so I don’t have an excuse for losing it.  I would think this is the first sign of dementia except it’s really the millionth episode starting in my early twenties.  So maybe I’ll take a wait and see policy because I’m too lazy to do anything about it anyway.

Camera Girl and I started watching a tv series on FX called “The Old Man” with Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow.  Bridges is a rogue CIA agent that has been hiding out for the last thirty years trying to live a normal life with his wife and daughter.  Lithgow was his old handler who is now an FBI big wig who doesn’t want Bridges to be caught because it will expose his part in shady doings that went on when the Russians were at war in Afghanistan.  So far (two episodes in), it’s very interesting and both of the leads are extremely interesting to watch.  Hopefully it continues to impress us.  We’re always short of good things on tv.

The ZMan’s podcast reinforced my recent feelings that we will be engulfed in this class struggle here in the West for a very long time and it is up to all of us and each of us on our side to strengthen the things we believe in and form as many links in the world to help our side survive the onslaught of the Left.  And surprisingly, it left me feeling slightly calmer and happier than before I listened to it.  Maybe it was his talk or maybe I’m reaching a better place with the status quo.  Panic doesn’t seem to be productive.

Well, that’s enough for now.  Have a great day.

05JUN2023 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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Probably the most significant news is that yesterday the long-discussed Ukraine offensive began.  There were several troop and tank movements in the Donetsk

“Russia’s defence ministry released video of what it said showed several Ukrainian armoured vehicles in a field blowing up after being hit.

Russian forces killed 250 Ukrainian troops as well as destroying 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured combat vehicles, the ministry said.”

Currently the Ukrainians have not released any statements with their take on the fighting.  From what I read the Ukrainian forces involved included about sixty tanks, 3,000 men, artillery and other armored vehicles.

This is still just a small fraction of the forces available for this offensive but it seems clear this wasn’t a feint.  It’s act one.  It will be evolving over the next days and weeks and it will be gut-wrenching for all involved.

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The Z-Man had an interesting post today about the evolving perspective on the dissident right about what the struggle with the Left actually entails.  Instead of the resistance of the Right to slow down the Left’s never-ending push to produce a heaven on earth he posits that the dissidents are aiming to eliminate ideology as the engine of human social advancement.  What’s being rejected is basically the Enlightenment project that gave birth to liberal democracy in the West.  In its place would be a pragmatic program based on the limitations of human society.  No more heaven on earth.  Just earth.

Pretty thought provoking stuff.

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I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about a horror movie (if that’s the genre) called Nefarious.  Apparently it’s a death row prisoner being interviewed by a psychiatrist to see if he’s sane enough to be executed.  The twist is that the prisoner claims to be possessed by a demon who wants the execution to proceed so he can escape to a new body from which he can continue his mayhem.  It’s still in the theater so they want twenty bucks to stream it at home.  Well!  I must be getting old.  I remember when twenty bucks was actual money.  I remember as a kid I once found a twenty dollar bill and I thought I was rich.  So anyway I’m stalling until it comes down in price.  It looks pretty good in the trailer.  The producers aren’t mainstream Hollywood types.  They’re on the religious side of things.  So that makes it even more interesting to me.  Maybe I’ll spring for the twenty bucks.  I’ll probably still be able to eat that week.  And supporting alternatives to woke corporations like the Hollywood studios is almost a religious obligation.  So I guess I’ll fork over the quatloos.

Podcast Musings on a Friday Morning

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So, I started my Friday as I usually do, listening to the mellifluous tones of the ZMan Power Hour podcast while I exercise.  And as luck would have it, today’s show was made up of several segments about things in the news.  I like this kind of show because he puts his slant on these topics and it gives him a chance to be amusing at the expense of the clowns involved.

For instance, he commented on the recent Banking Sub-Committee meeting that featured Senator John Fetterman.  After a few clips of Fetterman attempting to articulate complete sentences about the recent bank failures ZMan opined that the real takeaway was that the Democrats want Fetterman there because having a brain damaged hobo in the Senate further disrupts the norms of our society.  After all, if the most powerful deliberative body in the world can include a man who can no longer master the use of the definite article, “the” in his sentences then why shouldn’t the country go for decades without negotiating a budget for the federal government.

And I get his point.  But the reward for me is listening to someone who can interlard his speech with a description like “brain-damaged hobo.”  There’s an eloquence, a style there.  We have to enjoy our lives and having someone as witty as that provides the opportunity.  And he has a number of these witticisms.  Some he borrows from impeccable sources.  He has taken Oscar Wilde’s phrase, “It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at …” and used it to very good effect on a number of occasions.  He invented that excellent trope “Xirl Science” where he reads from the published papers of mostly female practitioners of usually social sciences like “gender studies.”  The contents are sometimes hilarious in their use of pseudoscientific jargon and obvious lack of rigor or even coherence.  But my all-time favorite ZMan-ism was when he called David French an obsequious rumpswab.  It doesn’t get better than that.

I don’t always agree with all of the ZMan’s conclusions.  But his analysis of what’s going on is usually very insightful.  And his podcast is extremely well done.  The audio quality is good.  His thought process is clear and well enunciated and there is enough humor with the often-distressing message about our times to keep us from gagging on the medicine.

So, he did a segment on Tucker Carlson’s banishment from Fox News and their replacing him.  And while discussing this he made the point that eliminating Tucker Carlson may have also been a business decision based on the reality of cable news economics.  Not enough people are getting their news from cable channels to make it a lucrative business.  The highest rated news channels get one or two million viewers.  There are YouTube channels that get ten times that.  If Fox News pays Tucker Carlson millions of dollars a year, then there isn’t that much left for their bottom line.  And they would prefer to pay chump change to some kid to read off the teleprompter instead.  And I think he’s right.  They’ll be “retiring” all the high salary pundits and hiring kids who just want a job.

And that makes sense.  If a place like Twitter will give a megaphone to independent contractors like Tucker Carlson it may not be long before cable news is a thing of the past.  And that’s good.  The news channels have been shown to be a racket with their sham objectivity and their willingness to lie for the powers that be.  In a sense what I do is no different from what the pundits perform.  The only difference is the economics.  And honestly, that seems to be shifting too.

The ZMan provides a quality product.  The value proposition he provides is very equitable.  He provides entertainment and valuable information.  That’s much more than you get from many cable news shows.  So, it was a good lesson I took away.

Now to figure out a way to make it pay!

ZMan Provides a Clear Explanation of What Wokism Is

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Is it Communism?  Is it fascism.  Is it just radical liberalism?  ZMan walks through the origins and the functionality of wokism for the members of the elite and their lackeys.

And here’s the kernel of it:

“That is the key to understanding Wokism. It is not so much what it is but what it does for the people who embrace it. For the managerial elite, it provides a sense of legitimacy to their place atop the social hierarchy. For the climbers dreaming of a perch at the top and those who gain satisfaction aping those at the top, it provides an ever-changing set of cultural fashions. Primarily, Wokism provides a way to distinguish who is inside and who is outside the dominant social group.”

Well that’s clear enough.  In his essay he fleshes out how and why this happened along with why the other labels are inaccurate.  If you want to know what wokism is, the link follows.

What Is Woke?

Twitter Labels NPR State Sponsored Propaganda. All Three Listeners Object Strenuously.

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This Elon Musk guy is a pretty funny dude.  He recently relabeled NPR with the same designation as the one used for North Korean and Zimbabwean state-sponsored media entities.

 

In protest the head of NPR complained,

In answer to this tweet, thousands of hecklers mocked him mercilessly reminding him of the Hunter Biden story and countless other examples of NPR toadying up to the Democrats.  To borrow one of the ZMan’s favorite terms the consensus was that NPR was guilty of regime rumpswabbery.

And Elon had the last word.

 

 

An Epiphany

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Listening to ZMan’s latest podcast was something of an aha! moment for me.  The way he laid out how the managerial state arose and evolved gave me a moment of clarity.  It made it clear what we are dealing with.  This is a system that interlocks all of the decision makers and their supporters across government, industry, academia, schools, NGO’s and almost every major institution in the western world.  This is not something we’re going to overcome by voting in a President and Congress.  Even if we had the Supreme Court, the White House and supermajorities in the House and Senate these people running the government will refuse to implement whatever programs those elected representatives legislate.  They’ll figure a way to stymie it.  And they will attack the leaders of those bodies and destroy them.

And let’s face it, we’re not going to have supermajorities in the Congress again.  The Left controls the federal government and unless they do something so disastrous that it destroys the support their programs have with the managerial state that’s how it will remain.

Okay.  That’s the starting point.  I’ll stop counting electoral college votes.  That at least saves me some time and aggravation.  I’ll stop worrying about the House and the Senate too.

So, what can be done?  To my mind the hopelessness of changing the federal government just reinforces the idea that the only place change can occur will be in states that have a solid Republican voting base and leaders who understand what needs to be done to protect their people from the federal government and its poisonous influence.

But the podcast on managerialism clarified what that protection looks like.  It’s wonderful to see Ron DeSantis and some of the other governors getting laws passed and using executive orders to cancel out the worst aspects of the federal overreach.  Banning drag queen story hour and criminalizing juvenile transgender medical treatments are wonderful ideas in and of themselves.  But you can’t win this fight by being against things.

What must be done is to think clearly about what things must be preserved in order for our lives to be worth living.  And then to transmit this information through schools and colleges to inculcate the young.  And then you have to have the state and local governments legislate a coherent program for enforcing the actions that will preserve the values that have been recognized as necessary for the survival of a healthy society.

These laws will impact every layer of society and every institution.  Corporations, towns and cities, religious organizations, even professional societies like the AMA and the state bar will be held accountable.  The laws will be clear and enforced stringently.  During a transition period maybe the state can accommodate helping dissidents to relocate to blue states when life becomes too much for the lefties that find themselves left high and dry in red states.  For instance I’m guessing that the majority of people living in Austin, Texas will have to flee to California if my plan were carried out.

Now this all sounds very draconian.  And the idea of all society bound by an inflexible code that doesn’t allow for many behaviors that we have grown used to allowing seems almost outlandish.  But think of where we are.  We now have teachers telling impressionable young children that they are not boys or girls but the opposite.  We have men playing in women’s sports and sharing locker rooms with them.  If what we have now allows for these dysfunctional and frankly insane situations then drastic actions to get things back to normal and keeping them that way are completely understandable and necessary.

So, this is what I’ve realized.  We need to fix things from the ground up.  And the federal government will fight this tooth and claw.  I don’t doubt that everything from intimidation to assassination to military action may be brought to bear.  And maybe there’s no hope.  The federal government as I’ve said is backed up by the managerial state that encompasses an enormously powerful collection of organizations.  They really do control a lot of what we call America.

But this is the only way it’s going to happen.  Someone somewhere has to get the ball rolling and begin the process of standing up a state government that is committed to restoring all the things that make life worth living.

What are these things?  I’ll leave defining the full list to wiser heads than mine but what I know is indispensable is preserving families.  Whatever has to be done to allow men and women to raise their kids in functional and healthy families is the most important business of society.  After that we can add the Ten Commandments and go on from there.

ZMan Clearly Explains the Managerial State

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ZMan has a podcast (below) providing a very convincing explanation for how our present bureaucratic system allows government bureaucrats and bureaucrats in business and education control essentially all aspects of our lives.  If you’re interested in understanding how the system you live in works, listen to this hour long podcast.

What the ZMan does not explain is how we get rid of such a system. He says the whole system has to be replaced.  That leaves the question how exactly you go about such a thing.  Curtis Yarvin would tell us we would have to somehow install a King/CEO who would fire/pension off the entire federal bureaucracy.  It would be interesting to hear these two fellows discuss this idea but it would probably turn into a food fight.

Highly recommended listen.

Managerial Polyarchy

The ZMan Riffs on Thucydides

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This Thursday’s ZMan post is a comparison of the Sicilian Expedition to the Ukraine War.  Comparisons of Thucydides’ Athens to America is a perennial favorite on the Right.  As the ZMan very carefully adds this is not a perfect analogy.  The Sicilian Expedition was a military debacle of horrific proportions.  Athens had doubled and tripled down on manning and arming this expedition so that when the defeat occurred there was practically nothing and no one left to continue the war with Sparta.  We may have emptied our armory to outfit the Ukrainians but in order to mirror the damage done to the Spartans, it would be necessary for the Americans to lose several million soldiers in the field.

Despite the inevitable differences it is amazing how apt the comparison of ancient Athens is to present day America.  Even the current woke culture has its analog in the influence of the Sophists and their undermining of conservative norms.

It’s always interesting to look at the classics.  But who would Biden represent?  Certainly not Pericles.  Even the despised Cleon proved a much more capable war time leader than balloon boy Biden.  Maybe some obscure pederast in one of Aristophanes’ plays would do.

Anyway, a fun read.