Comments

Sadness — 90 Comments

1. If it comes to it, there’s one possibility of a non violent revolt that could actually be devasting: if 30% of the country refused to pay their federal income taxes there wouldn’t be a lot that the powers that be could really do about it.

2. Re: Canadian truckers. I read this yesterday:
   https://twitter.com/FromKulak/status/1666563019076141057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1666563019076141057%7Ctwgr%5E816664dc116aee885583f72784083c20c2371121%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Face.mu.nu%2F

   Opening paragraph

   “ I keep encountering this misconception from people who don’t follow Canadian politics…

   That somehow the Trucker convoy was defeated.

   The Freedom Convoy was the most wildly immediately successful protest in Canadian history, maybe WORLD history.”

3. Chases Eagles:

   I brought the truckers up not to point out what finally happened in Canada vis a vis vaccines. The protest may have been successful in that regard. My point is that it showed people that government is willing and able (because of computerization) to freeze personal finances if it so desires. The government was flexing its muscles. That’s the context in which I mentioned it.

4. I think you both need to turn your attention to other subjects.

5. In view of Stan’s comment, “Biden, Obama, the Clintons and the rest of Big Brother’s politburo have made it perfectly clear. Soros and the dark money crowd, The NY Times, WaPo, the big tech censors — they aren’t fooling around. They intend to crush dissent,”
   I do not undestand his choice of 2016 as the year that the finishing blow was delivered. November 2016 was certainly a sign that the finishing blow had not yet been delivered by then.

6. anger rage furia,to make it clear, this is why the subterfuge about tone and temper is beside the point, we have actual evidence of a bribe that has led to the looting of 150 billion, including the transfer of our strategic reserve, a good portion of our military stocks,

7. Chases Eagles, I read that same piece and wonder if the Media is just not covering that story.

   As for this country, I agree with Stan. My only consolation is that I am 85 and have had a good life. On the other hand, I have 5 kids and 5 grandchildren. My wife even has a couple of great grandchildren. I’m afraid they are going to have to make it on their own.

8. Appropos to the moment in history in which we find ourselves, the following was composed by Hesiod in the aftermath of the collapse of Mycenaean civilization (ca. 1100s BC), during the Greek Dark Age:

   Far-seeing Zeus then made another race,
   The fifth who now live on the fertile earth.
   I wish I were not of this race, that I
   Had died before, or had not yet been born.
   This is the race of iron. Now, by day,
   Men work and grieve unceasingly; by night,
   They waste away and die. The gods will give
   Harsh burdens, but will mingle in some good.
   Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men,
   When babies shall be born with greying hair.
   Father will have no common bond with son
   Neither will guest with host, nor friend with friend
   The brother-love of past days will be gone. . . .
   Men will destroy the towns of other men.
   The just, the good, the man who keeps his word
   Will be despised, but men will praise the bad
   And insolent. Might will be right and shame
   Will cease to be. Men will do injury
   To better men by speaking crooked words
   And adding lying oathes, and everywhere
   Harsh-voiced and sullen-faced and loving harm,
   Envy will walk along with wretched men.

   Hesiod, The Works and Days
   (transl. Wender, D.), Harmondsworth 1973, 182-95.

9. Ira,

   2016 was Crossfire Hurricane and the Hillary whitewash. It was the year when the deep state (Big Brother) turned the rabid dogs of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ et al fully loose to destroy the rule of law and the constitution. It was the year of the attempted election-fixing and the beginning of the attempted coup. Everything since has simply been a continuation of that operation. Someone today or yesterday specifically made that point — this is the seventh year of all out Big Brother, the thought police and the blatant, relentless war on the constitution.

   I don’t have serious disagreement with Neo’s pointing to Obama’s election. The deep state gestapo is clearly still marching to his drummer. It’s all on a continuum. I just happen to see 2016 as a significant signpost for when the deep state got decidedly ugly and turned down the path to hell.

10. For anyone with the stomach to read it, here is all the tortured logic and reasoning as to why Hillary Clinton was not charged with anything.

    https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

    The few democrat friends I have, with whom I’m willing to discuss such things, entirely get what’s going on here. But they seem to think it’s all OK because Trump. When I do my very best to explain to them the logical extension of their reasoning, that’s when the fingers go in the ears.

11. Yep, I’m with Art Deco. The best thing for a normal person to do is not think about all this too much. Nothing you personally can do about it. Get offline, go outside and do things or read a book.

    Marinating in all this is not a good idea if one wants to be a happy person.

12. Nonapod at the Top — YES to a general nationwide STRIKE.

    The only question is to solidify around a short proposition. Such as
    “This Government Is Illegitimate.”

    As Stan says, “ I just happen to see 2016 as a significant signpost for when the deep state got decidedly ugly and turned down the path to hell.”

    And you don’t even mention the media cheerleading this abuse and beginning to lie to us, weekly and then daily to us.

13. it is evidence of what a pirate regime does, there’s a certain irony they are trying it in miami, where the deepstate has played its games for 60 some years, they called miami a banana republic, but what kind of fruit do they grow in the Capitol, or Gotham, and I can’t even think what befits Fulton county,

14. The best response to sadness is not happiness. That puts you in a vicious cycle between the two. On the other hand, simple awareness allows the flow of events to become varied entertainment. We are not things mixed in with the cacophony out there. We are simple pure awareness.

    Neo’s blog is a great window – one of the best. I’m grateful to the whole family.

15. Griffin states “ Marinating in all this [madness] is not a good idea if one wants to be a happy person.”

    Sure. Everyone has their limit. Know it, honor it.

    But what if the Treason bites deep, and the virtues of honesty, honor, and fidelity are all getting savagely raped?

    Say to me: “Pipe down. Don’t be alarmed. It’s all a dream,”
    and I will get in your face, man. Limits? YES. BUT live NOT by lies.

    Mike K — worries about survivors “ I’m afraid they are going to have to make it on their own.”

    We all are. THIS drives this weeks rebellion in the House against the deal. He French Revolution came as the Monarchy’s debt ate half of income — and we are headed there.

16. Griffin:

    I’m not sure what a “normal person” is. I’m a blogger, which makes it much harder for me to ignore such things – or perhaps I am a blogger because it’s hard for me to ignore such things.

17. Art Deco:

    I give plenty of attention to other subjects, in case you haven’t noticed.

18. neo,

    Was more referring to people who are readers of the news as opposed to writers.

19. In troubled times I find solace — and balance, calm and, curiously, reason for hope — in reading the works of ancient historians and poets (e.g., Thucydides, Hesiod, etc); as well as ancient wisdom literature (e.g., Ecclesiastes). When I do, I am always reminded that I am a part of the Great Cosmic Drama of Good and Evil; and that none of us are mere bit players in that drama.

    Highly recommended: The great Alexander Scourby reading The Book of Ecclesiastes. Available free on YouTube at
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4me89GgHM6Y

20. It’s not a good idea to stew in the negativity, but as the saying goes “if you ain’t mad, you ain’t paying attention.”

    Ask most conservatives, and they’ll say they just want to be left alone. The other side doesn’t see it that way. They want to crush those they suspect of heresy against their religion. It’s best to believe them when they tell you who they are.

21. Oddly enough I am less sad about this than stan or neo, and I think the reason is that I think there’s other things going on which, while they make things like electing a Republican President in 2024 essentially impossible, there are also levers to be pulled that a lot of us just are not thinking about, because it’s too different from how we think America works or should work.

    A lot of these levers involve using the power we have more effectively, but still in legal and ethical ways. Some of these levers involve peaceful civil disobedience and/or “Irish Democracy”. And I hope it’s these kinds of levers that get pulled, and not the ones labeled “ultima ratio”*.

    *Ultima ratio regum was supposedly inscribed on Louis XIV’s cannon.

22. thucydides reminds us that athens fell into the hands of a gang of oligarchs, the council of 300, they were the ones who ordered socrates death, it came in the aftermath of a military defeat and a great plague, that ravaged the country, (you can infer what you wish from that)

23. I’ve got a new post up, on the audio recording of Trump allegedly saying that the paper was not declassified.

24. Revisiting Nonapod’s suggestion, I replied endorsing the nationwide General Strike notion. Let me add another possible but frank proposition.

    “Biden is Politicizing the next Presidential election.” We reject this.

    THIS is simple and direct. And does not require the masses to grasp
    political legitimacy — my first thought being “This Government Is Illegitimate.”

25. Please, please remember that it was the world’s wealthiest feminists–those daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters of Seattle’s wealthiest families who organized the election of Obama. They first tested their skills when they decided that the Episcopal Church should be taken down. They forced the election of a female archbishop and the acceptance of homosexuality. Once they had successfully organized these accomplishments they then turned toward the white house. They first considered having the first female president, but a black president took precedence in establishing their power. They create political and now universal solutions in the same way they shop at Nordstrom’s–I’ll take one of those, ooh should we try that one?

26. Thanks for the clarification, Stan.

27. I agree that this is all very depressing and there are times when I just want to ignore what is going on in the outside world and focus on the positive things in my life like my family and garden. But I also don’t necessarily think things are quite as bad as they seem. I think there are a growing number of people who realize what is going on and are getting angry. There are a number of others who just don’t pay much attention to politics and as long as things seem to be going OK they don’t see the need to do anything. Unforeseen events can quickly change this equation. If the economy goes south and the chaos in our cities starts spreading, I believe people will act. Things could get quite ugly for a while but I don’t think the situation is hopeless.

28. Instapundit linked yesterday to a post on the Canadian truckers that pointed out that they won. Within a month, nearly all their demands had been met, the covid lockdowns lifted, and several politicians fell out of power.

    However, that was only in the near term. The longer term consequences are that the establishment fought back.

    First, they implemented internet censorship that will prevent any non-approved-by-the-government protest movement from gaining any traction in the future. Their ability to communicate with others will be eliminated, and they’ll be dead in the water before they get their toes wet. In addition, there is new media licensing, which gives greater access to public buildings, events, and politicians to approved media, and freezes out alternate outlets like Rebel News and True North News.

    Second, the post-emergency-powers investigation was a complete whitewash, allowing all further prime ministers to do the same thing any time they want. The lawsuit brought against the only living writer of the Canadian Charter, who objected to the usurpation of the freedom of speech and assembly, was thrown out, leaving people without the protection of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (Canada constitutionally broke away from the British and wrote and passed their own constitution in 1982).

    Time to change the anthem: “True North brave and free!” doesn’t seem to fit anymore.

29. Has anyone else at or near retirement been looking at the expatriation rules?

    On the other hand, where else is there to go now? It’s not like 1620 when we can attempt a fresh start in a new world. Very discouraging.

30. When I first read “disempower” my mind read “disembowel”. Which is probably closer to the truth.

31. I agree that this is all very depressing and there are times when I just want to ignore what is going on in the outside world and focus on the positive things in my life like my family and garden. But I also don’t necessarily think things are quite as bad as they seem. I think there are a growing number of people who realize what is going on and are getting angry.

    –Gregory Harper

    Yes, that’s my take too. Things have gone farther than I expected, it does look bad, but things don’t go in one direction forever and the current trajectory is not sustainable.

    I’ve spent most of my life thinking I was personally or socially or politically or ecologically screwed. I had what seemed like good reasons. I really did not expect to live to my current three-score-and-eleven years, much less as well as I have.

    Life goes up and down and most of the things I feared did not come to pass. Politically I’ve seen the US going right, left, right, then hard left. I suppose the US could become a hard left dictatorship, but it strikes me as unlikely. I’ll deal with that if and when.

    It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.

32. The five Kübler-Ross stages of grief are
    Denial; Anger; Bargaining; Depression; Acceptance.

    – I don’t believe that I was ever in denial per se. (Individual stages of grief may in fact be absent.)

    – My anger began when the Tea Party movement (such as it was) was relentlessly ridiculed and smeared. Oh, I knew how the liberal establishment had smeared right-leaners going all the way back least as far as Barry Goldwater; I applauded the “Annoy The Media, Elect Bush” bumper stickers as truth-tellers (even as I was suspicious of both Bushes myself); I chafed at the smearing of Bork and Thomas. But the personal smears were simply what the left *did* (and of course, *does*, with relish). With the Tea Partiers, it wasn’t directed at this person or that person, and so, there was something going on (personal attacks) aside from what the left routinely did/does. That anger has grown and grown and grown.

    Aside: I was perplexed at how Romney came down hard on his Republican opponents but was a pussycat when going up against Obama. I couldn’t understand it, but now I can, because I had not taken into account the elitist/class aspect of what was going on. Likewise, I could not comprehend how, while I could understand how erstwhile conservatives couldn’t stand Donald Trump — *I* couldn’t/can’t stand him, as a person — I could not for the life of me! understand them supporting Hillary Clinton and/or *that* ilk. I am wiser now.

    – I never found even an emotional/psychological reason to bargain with what I was seeing. (Another absent stage of grief.)

    – My depression first set in when Obama traded a deserter for five Taliban bigwigs. (These stages of grief can be overlapping). At that point it was utterly undeniable that something terrible was happening to what had been *my* country, as *NO* POTUS would *ever* have acted in such a treasonous, contemptuous manner. I will not bore dear reader with blow-by-blow descriptions of how the depression has deepened and deepened. This is partially out of self-preservation, as I don’t want to be typing for the next couple of hours.

    – This brings me to [drum roll] acceptance. I am somewhere between

    Griffin (4:14 pm) — “Do not think about all this too much. Nothing you personally can do about it. . . . Marinating in all this is not a good idea if one wants to be a happy person”,

    and

    Banned Lizard (4:30 pm) — “The best response to sadness is not happiness. . . . On the other hand, simple awareness allows the flow of events to become varied entertainment. . . . We are simple pure awareness.”

    And so, when I first chanced upon yesterdays news about the Trump indictment, I shrugged. Hey, it’s simply what they (the lefties) *do*. I at first idly compared it to Hillary’s missing e-mails and the private unclassified server she’d been using — but I’m fa-a-a-r beyond outrage, or even annoyance. Yes, yes, and I compared it to, ever so briefly, the Biden Family’s almost certain criminality, and how the mainstreamers and the FBI and the CIA and the DoJ and Hollywood and Academia (and now even K-12, but let’s not go there) all are fulfilling their roles as damnable accessories to bringing down this country — and voila! I am now squarely in the “Acceptance” stage. Yay for me.

    I will exit stage right one of these years, and I can only express gratitude that none of my children or step-children betray any indication that they are going to have children of their own. So at least my progeny will be spared the dystopia that’s already here.

    If only I had Gregory Harper’s (5:33 pm) or huxley’s (6:32 pm) relative optimism (“It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken”). I’m doin’ my level best, huxley.

33. If you keep stating that all Democrat voters are iredemiabally evil, IMO, you are somewhat responsible for sadness getting the best of you. Hope your funk passes. Take solace in the Lord our Savior.

34. Watt on asks about expatriation rule? There are no restrictions; you don’t even have to report to any official. Just get on a plane and leave.

    You can get your social security checks deposited in a U.S. bank and withdraw funds from abroad. To a bank account there, if you choose. (But to do so you’ll need to gain residency first. An essential document.)

    Mexico is affordable, even so in some places you wouldn’t think possible. Many move there and live without ever gaining residency. There are a few YT vids on a retired woman who found a nice apartment for $400 a month in Puerto Vallarta. The key was hunting locally NOT in a resort neighbourhood, but in Old Puerto Vallarta. Bonus of the original fishing village on the Pacific is that the neighbourhood is very walkable, and with lively services like cafe’s are open by day.

    There are lots and lots of videos on retiring from the US on social security income alone, yet living as well or better than one did in the US. Do a word search on YouTube vids via your web browser.

    The cheapest civilised country costs 20% of the US in average living costs. (See Numbeo.com, do some research and compare cities here and there.) That country is Argentina.

    If you love red wine and beef, it could be a match. But unlike stable and growing Mexico, the 15 year cycle of economic destruction through inflation has jumped from 50% a year to over 100% in Argentina, and is expected to go higher. (Hint: they are used to it!) If your income is in US dollars, then you are in the catbird seat.

    Thus, the simplest and cheapest options are South and deserve learning some Spanish. If you need a cheap place to retire with English, then the Philippines deserves your attention. It’s popular with US military retirees. Again, YT has lots to see, replete with budgeting facts to consider for lifestyle comparison shopping.

    I am far off the topic of this thread. So I’ll end it there.

35. The people in the government do not fear their political opposition today. If they feared violence, they probably would be far more circumspect in their use and abuse of their offices. If Merrick Garland or his family, for example, could not go out in public without getting assassinated, they would probably behave a lot less corruptly. I fear that is what it is going to take- the application of real violence to check this descent into authoritarianism- the people in power need to understand that if they routinely violate the rights of their political opposition, they will have to pay a price in blood. You see it across the rest of the world and throughout history- if it becomes impossible to vote out your oppressors, then violence is the only recourse- there is no other.

36. they pretended to, thats why they summoned 20,000 national guardsmen and turned the Capitol grounds into a barbed wire ringed set for the Hunger Games,

37. Yancey Ward (7:09 pm), right up your alley:

    “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” — President John F. Kennedy

    (Address on first anniversary of Alliance for Progress, 13 March 1962)

38. I was going to just drop the last bit of this in…but it needs a wider context..

    “You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
    We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
    We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.” – 2 Corinthians 4:5-11

    I share some of that “sadness,” but reject its fullness for 2 very specific reasons.
    1…As noted above, when all avenues of peaceful resistance are closed off, only violent recourse remains. I would suggest there’s a comeuppance about to be rendered upon the far left…and it will make the St George of the Fetatnyl ’20 Festival seem like a Baptist picnic. The post-Obama world where the state has been fully corrupted against its citizens…is going to make an ugly but large & bloody pyre.

    2…I grieve for the lostness of those lives. Both the trans-attacktivists & the earth-worshippers….among others. The tortured souls who convince themselves that God so screwed up with this world that they have to destroy all that makes for the good, beautiful & true to remake it in the most debauched & debased way. Those who genuinely look at Hunger Games as a blueprint for their residency in the Center City of Panem…or on the faraway satellite of Elysium…They’re devoted to a strange god & like all strange gods…that way ends in death & desolation on a scale unmatched.

    So I reject despair because I hold to a higher Sovereignty…a surer Hope…and guaranteed Destiny. And even death fails to take that away. So all these little pissant problems conceited by those who reject the sacred established goodness of all things…they’ll soon enough be gone forever.

39. Anonymous’ list of events pushed by rich elite women should include the Tailhook scandal. The top, and much of the middle leadership of the Navy was driven out.

40. My posts always seem to be negative. I am observing what is. Since I was old enough to be politically aware (I’m 63) we have been on a downward trend except for a few bright spots (Reagan, to an extent Clinton, Trump). How could it be anything other than what it is when the left worked so hard to infiltrate education, social media, the arts, news, music, movies and conservatives did……what exactly? And the average American being so oblivious to the importance of political involvement and of the world around them. Fisher Ames was right.

41. I try to avoid despair by remembering the grit displayed by my forebears here in the U.S. facing worse crises, WWII among them–not to mention the Brits facing the Nazis, or the French Resistance, or the people caught behind the Iron Curtain who never gave up. Never never never never never.

42. Mike K:

    I don’t mean to play “more optimistic than thou.” Arguably, I could be blinding myself to the danger ahead.

    But it’s so hard to know for sure.

    I was so relieved when I left the Left. The Left was constantly scaring me to death about the Right and the Environment. I don’t want to go back to living like that.

43. As an addendum to my post, my reaction? I place no faith at all in human institutions. Never have. From what I am observing it is the human condition. I’m not expating. I’ll go down with the ship. I do what I can and hopefully move to a state more in line with what I believe. As an Eastern Orthodox Christian we’ve been through this before so, at least I have a roadmap.

44. thucydides reminds us that athens fell into the hands of a gang of oligarchs, the council of 300, they were the ones who ordered socrates death,

    I skipped a lot of comments but can’t let this pass. It was the DEMOCRATS, not the oligarchs who ordered Socrates’ death.

    Also, “Classified Documents” are not mentioned in the indictment. They have decided to go with a tortured version of the Espionage Act. Woodrow Wilson would be so proud.

45. @Mike K, miguel:It was the DEMOCRATS, not the oligarchs who ordered Socrates’ death.

    True. Too many of Socrates’ students had been among the oligarchs, who were a puppet government installed by Sparta. The oligarchs, however, had killed plenty of people, something like 5% of Athen’s population, and had executed 1500 without any trial at all.

46. “ I believe it was Obama’s successful implementation of the Gramscian march through the DOJ and other federal agencies that finally cemented our current abysmal situation.”

    Hear, hear.

    The soulless viper in 2010: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends.”

47. Just to say that I share both the sadness and the anger. I would not be so depressed if I didn’t have children and grandchildren, with some of the former already having been drawn into the new order.

    If not for that, I’d just say “the American people have made their bed, let them lie in it.” I’m in my 70s and won’t be around all that much longer.

    The deepest root of the problem is that we just don’t have enough people who want to be citizens of a republic. They hardly even know what those words mean. It certainly isn’t what progressives mean by “our democracy.”

48. So I reject despair because I hold to a higher Sovereignty…a surer Hope…and guaranteed Destiny. And even death fails to take that away.

    John Guilfoyle:

    Some sort of born-again experience happened to me on Easter, 2001. I’m not a devout believer by orthodox Christian standards.

    But something happened and it washed much of the pain and fear out of my life and replaced it with faith.

    Faith in God, faith in Jesus, faith in Life, and to some extent even faith in Humanity.

    I could be wrong.

    But that’s how I live now.

49. MJR,

    I had exactly that quote in my mind when I wrote the comment.

50. Sadness and anger. I’ve got plenty of that.
    I’ve written to my Senators and representative. I want them to know what I’m thinking. Otherwise, they will think everyone is on board with this political persecution.

    Writing made me feel better. It’s may not be useful in changing their minds, but it eases my mind.

    This country has faced some hard times before. I was a child of the Depression and WWII. I saw the adults in my life put on their game faces and keep on believing that better days were coming. And they did. We’re entirely too rich and spoiled. We expect things to work out even if we don’t work at them. Our society has too much time on its hands and doesn’t have to work hard enough for the necessities of life. Idle minds are the devil’s workshop, and you can see that in action.

    I’m not giving up, or giving in. I have faith in a higher power. Whatever lies down the road, let’s face it with our game faces on and faith hard times make people stronger. And recall that most Americans are decent people who may have forgotten that the Constitution needs to be defended.

    The Fat Lady has not sung. Let’s keep her in the wings.

51. Progressives fundamentally embrace a rejection of objective reality. Nations cannot permanently sustain profligate spending. Now ‘progressives’ even reject the most fundamental of biological realities. Yet even worse, they enable and celebrate the permanent and irreversible mass sexual mutilation of children. That is evil personified.
    The left’s ‘celebrated’ Southern Poverty Law Center has just labeled as a hate group, the deeply concerned parents of prepubescent grade schoolers who dare to protest the sexualized indoctrination of their children.

    Ultimately, all of this is a losing proposition with terrible consequences for those who are facilitating it.

    The more dominance they achieve, the more quickly they hasten forward the day of their reckoning. After they’ve wrecked the country… that terrible reckoning will come.

    The Nazis deserved what they got and so too will our rabid ideologues deserve the consequences of what they have wrought. George Orwell astutely observed that, “So much of left-wing thinking is a kind of playing with fire, by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”

52. Yancey Ward writes “ If Merrick Garland or his family, for example, could not go out in public without getting assassinated, they would probably behave a lot less corruptly. I fear that is what it is going to take- the application of real violence to check this descent into authoritarianism- the people in power need to understand that if they routinely violate the rights of their political opposition, they will have to pay a price in blood.”

    YES. America needs a French-style beheading Revolution. Nothing else can now save her.

    Abraham Franklin quotes Obama in 2010: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends.”

    AND WHO AMONG THE Rs IS LIKE THIS? No one — not even the mean tweeter compares.

53. Definitely Barky Fundamentally Changing America, he told you it was over

54. Thank you, JJ. A helpful comment.

    It’s almost always helpful when people talk about their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

    It’s almost never helpful when people talk about what they think other people should do, think, or feel.

55. When Obama was elected, Michael Barone wrote a column saying that this meant Chicago thug politics were now going national. He was right about that.

56. To those interested in history, which I expect includes neo and just about every reader of this blog, the phrase; “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” will be familiar.
    I believe that we, in the US, observing our national government, are living through a period very similar to the rise of the Third Reich in the early 30s:
    There is no respect for law, only for power.
    Dissenting citizens are demonized, and physically hunted down and removed from society.
    Politically motivated prosecutions are brought through kangaroo courts. Innocents are handed harsh, unjust sentences, largely to intimidate the population at large into cowed silence.
    Violent mobs, perceived to be “on the govt. side”, are allowed free reign.
    The media is largely compliant, and even actually applauds the injustice.
    The US has been accurately described as a garrison state. The military and the associated industrial/corporate interests are now in unassailable positions of power.
    The political elite has developed the policy of “super-imperialism”, as Michael Hudson calls it. The policy rests on the assumption of US supremacy, and superiority, and seeks to destroy any potential rival through overt and covert application of “The International Rules Based Order”, which explicitly pursues US hegemony.
    The wars of intervention that the US has waged since WW2 have largely been waged for the purpose of weakening potential alternatives to US power. The war in Ukraine is a classic example.
    Just as the German regime pursued the aim of war against the USSR, the US is preparing for a totally unnecessary war against China. Who hasn’t noticed the campaign of vilification against China? Who hasn’t noticed the provocations, particularly around the Taiwan issue, but also on a broad industrial and social front?
    Just as the German war against the USSR ended badly, the US campaign against China will end in tears. Hopefully, but not likely, without the use of nuclear weapons.
    Neo is right, there is now no chance of reform through internal US politics. The govt. is too strong, the means of monitoring and control are too powerful. The Federal electoral process has been captured. How else to explain the contemptuous arrogance of the “deep state” institutions. They don’t give a damn what we think, because they don’t have to.
    Change can only occur now via defeat by an external enemy. How many of us will survive to see that?

57. again with the nazis, no this more like the eastern european experience, the pincer movements in czechoslovakia in 48, that were the real set piece for the cold war,

58. the point is to lead to a capitulation (i use the terms of the settlements of the boxer rebellion,)

59. Roger:

    Can Do! Xi approves, you hit all their talking points.

60. ”The wars of intervention that the US has waged since WW2 have largely been waged for the purpose of weakening potential alternatives to US power. The war in Ukraine is a classic example.”

    Oh, good grief! The war in Korea started when North Korea invaded South Korea. The war in Vietnam started when North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. The war in Iraq started when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The war in Afghanistan started when Al Qaddafi terrorists protected by Afghanistan attacked New York and Washington D.C. The war in the Ukraine started when Russia invaded the Ukraine.

    Has anyone else noticed that an awful lot of diehard Trump supporters have gone all-in on Anti-Americanism? I bet it’s going to get a lot worse as they come to realize Trump will never again be president.

61. om/mkent:
    The naivete of your responses is very disappointing. But just as Germany in 1933 had its stormtroopers, we have them here in the US as well.

62. korea was a holding action because truman checkmated mcarthur, need we go into the waste of treasure and lives that was vietnam, what became of 20 years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan, except the promotion of milley austin and co,

63. mkent:
    If you think I am a “diehard Trump supporter” you could not be more wrong. It is true that I voted for him in 2016 and 2020, and donated $500.00 to his 2016 campaign.
    Really, a man less suited to politics could hardly be imagined. He is not a team player, or even a team builder, its “his way or the highway”.
    I did admire him for his real estate development abilities; he has tremendous vision, imagination, iniative and determination. Although it is worth noting that he actually made the bulk of his fortune from gambling (just like the mafia).
    I have very little interest in who the republican nominee will be for 2024. The election is already decided, the democrat is going to win. There is some hope that a disruptor such as RFKjr will be the nominee, but that is very unlikely.
    As I said; I believe the fatal shock to the mess we have will have to come from an external source. Something as serious as losing a war with China.
    The US is losing the war in Ukraine, but that defeat is unlikely to topple the regime in Washington DC.
    The defeat in Vietnam didn’t, after a few years the same old imperialism re-grew its filthy head.
    As for being Anti-American; that is an unjust accusation. I believe if the Founding Fathers could see what has become of their project, they would be horrified.

64. “Al Qaddafi”???

    I specifically typed “Al Qaeda.” Damn this new iPad.

    ”The naivete of your responses is very disappointing.”

    Which invasion on my list did not actually occur?

    ”…need we go into the waste of treasure and lives that was vietnam…”

    That so-called “waste” saved Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines and led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    ”…what became of 20 years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan…”

    The death of thousands of violent Al Qaeda terrorists, the destruction of dozens of terrorist training camps, and the annihilation of Al Qaeda as an effective terrorist organization.

65. the regime hates america, how do you miss that point, they might as well be aliens from recovered craft, just slightly less implausible than the chimp circus we have been subjected to, in the last three years,

66. they are empowered with 80 billion dollars in military equipment, their ranks have been refurbished by new recruits from gitmo like the 20th hijacker, another figure paracha who wanted to smuggle nuclear material in that country,

67. we have how many terror watch listees, who have been smuggled into the country, it only took 19 to kill 3000, another might have doubled the death toll,

68. And again my comment has disappeared. Even closing the tab and restarting it does not bring it back.

69. Roger:

    History is one thing, propaganda and deceit are another (which you provide). Seen it before (which is the opposite of naive, BTW) and your example is particularly inept.

70. the kim dynast is still on his throne, thanks to his sponsor xi, every once in a while he makes a stupid stunt with his missiles but one of these days, of course we look over our less successful interventions that had even less success, in the distant pass and now more recently

    lets look upon europe that two generations of Americans save from their own immolation, is it freer now, that isn’t remotely true,
    https://www.eugyppius.com/p/pandemic-impressionism-i-the-lie

    lets look at our own institutions medical legal education, they are so rotted you need to burn the tree at the root, to start over, doctors mutilatng children with demonic glee, look at our cities, they are sliding down the dark defile,

71. mkent:
    Is your allusion to the “domino theory” an attempt at humor?
    Nobody in SE Asia believed that nonsense for a moment.
    This belief, common in the US, that all nationalist liberation movements were sponsored by some cabal of world dominators somewhere is just idiotic.
    The truth is, people then, just as people now, want to get out from under the US boot. What do you think BRICS is all about? What do you think the efforts to de-dollarize are all about?
    The truth is that the leaders of the US need to start respecting other people’s cultures. They need to understand that this awful decadence which prevails in the West, due in large part to US cultural influence, is not universally welcomed.
    A little humility on the part of the US Govt. would be appreciated.

72. Is Roger a parody? The dread US boot, not the soft slipper of Xi or Vladdy (LOL). Much less the tender sandals of ISIS or Iran. Caliphate anyone?

    More Roger, please.

    As if the current political class on the left in the US isn’t all in regarding cultural sensitivity and the evils of the US in the last 200+ years. Yep, Roger is a parody.

73. we turn our currency to scrap, and then wonder why others won’t take it, we don’t trade in monopoly money, do we,

    we just look at the big picture, zod’s minions side show is just that,

74. My Vietnamese refugee neighbor would not agree with Roger at all with reference to what Communism did to his country, and to his family.

75. ”The US is losing the war in Ukraine.”

    The US isn’t fighting the war in Ukraine. If it were, the entire Russian army would have been rolled up in a month. As it is, Russia is experiencing a stunning strategic defeat.

    You know, as the five minutes of editing time expired on my first reply, I worried that maybe I had been too quick to judge Roger. Nope. Nailed it.

76. mkent:

    I missed that gem of Roger’s:

    “The US is losing the war in Ukraine.”

    Maybe Roger meant to say:

    “The US is loosing the war in Ukraine.”

    Russia would not have needed a special military operation except for the dread US boot?

77. There’s a “chickens come home to roost” aspect to this. The things the far left complained about government doing to them in the Cold War era are now being done by Democrats against their political opponents. The measures against terrorists we allowed after 9/11 are now being applied by the regime to its domestic political opponents. The corporations that young radicals railed against are now working hand in hand with left-leaning bureaucrats, activists, foundations, and NGOs.

    Still, when I remember Gore Vidal going on and on through all the years of my life about how the republic was dead and America was in decline, it does give me some hope. We’ve been able to survive all this time and even do great things in spite of our follies and errors, so perhaps we can survive the present confusion and malaise. I do wonder, though: is thinking well of America’s history and remembering the high points something that can inspire us with hope? Or does seeing how far we’ve fallen only make us despair?

    We fought two wars against Iraq. The first was justifiable. The second definitely wasn’t. That — and the failure of our efforts in Vietnam and Afghanistan and the ISIS mess we helped create — is probably what the critics are focused on. Our manifest failures in dealing with Russia after the Cold War are also much on many minds. Foreigners and American leftists often saw a self-interested side to our efforts as world policeman. Lately many American conservatives have come to wonder about ways in which the critics may have been right.

78. Self-interest is always unavoidably a part of foreign policy, and there’s a problem in foreign policy of being too “idealistic”. The trouble with self-interest is when it becomes predatory, or when professions of virtuous disinterestedness and public spiritedness clash too much with one’s actions. I’d say it was like that with GW Bush in Iraq and with our post-Cold War Russia policy.

79. Although Roger has some good points, it’s painted with a lot of Ron Paul philosophy. The reason the people in those countries hate the United States has nothing to do with our “imperialism”, and everything to do with the fact that their own politicians / tyrants fill their heads with BS.

    And allow me to say it: some cultures ARE better than others, and that’s an objective position.

80. well the practical impact is we have alienated a good part of the third world, currently with ruinous fiscal policies, that make their situation worse, the bric alliance is about 3 billion people, give or take, our expeditionary forces have been less than successful, if not utter failure when it comes to afghanistan,

81. we needlessly provoke our allies for what reason,

    https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1667856925076123648?cxt=HHwWgMCztazCtaUuAAAA

82. Sorry, but Russia’s problems are, wait for it, a result of Russian choices.

83. “The(y) do want to provoke violence, but only because they believe – correctly, I think – that they will be able to crush it easily..”

    I don’t think so, at least the majority of the people at the top. They’re flirting with it, mainly as a demoralizing tactic, but they know it’s far from a sure thing.
    A precondition for government success is Australian/UK levels of gun removal. Any tactician has to worry that a large portion of the public has an AR-15 which makes small unit control operations iffy. Note the increased propaganda and push for “Assault Weapon” confiscation. A bright spot here is the AR-15 style pistol registration requirements. The grace period has expired and 90% or so of the estimated multi-millions of them remain “in the wild”.
    Then there’s the millions of deer rifles with 3×9 scopes on them, AKA ” High Power Sniper Weapons” that keep the Secret Service and other protection agencies up at night.
    We may see small skirmishes of which the government will “win” in a tactical sense, but no where near enough of them to remove the “uneasy head” feeling at the upper levels.

84. Author unknown ~

    The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of “Men who wanted to be left Alone”.

    They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love.

    They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it.

    They know, that the moment they fight back, the lives as they have lived them, are over.

    The moment the “Men who wanted to be left Alone” are forced to fight back, it is a small form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. . . .

    Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these “Men who wanted to be left Alone”, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at the Left’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy . . . . but it will fall upon deaf ears.

85. I agree that Obama’s election in 2008 and more importantly his re-election in 2012 to be the finishing blow. Obama had a terrible first term but with the media running cover for him and Romney campaigning in a low key way, America just was not ready to reject the first Black preisdent.

86. Romney dropped the ball, look at how he screams at Trump, as if he had stolen his silverwear, then tut tuts whenever real injuries to the body politic occur, many of them enabled by his own hand,

87. Only one word. Why? Why are they doing this?

88. As Watt said, Has anyone looked into expatriation rules? I have dual citizenship USA and another country, but it does seem as if the crisis is bigger than the US. It seems to encompass the world. Escaping to EU won’t help. Right?

89. @Liza: Escaping to EU won’t help. Right?

    No, this is mostly top-down from the Davos set.

90. Whether violence can “work” or not… whether it can “win”, is irrelevant.

    Get clear in your mind just what you can live with, and what you cannot. Draw that line, and prepare for it to be crossed.

    Most importantly, it is morally incumbent upon us to ensure that those crossing that line incur more “cost” than we are worth. Plan accordingly.

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