Today seems like a good day to do a culture war update. After all, yesterday witnessed the winning Super Bowl field goal kicked for the first time by a player who had possibly been under investigation by the FBI: Harrison Butker was wearing a Scapular when he kicked Super Bowl-winning field goal
It’s encouraging to note that, while many institutions, especially the legacy media, have been captured by the Leftist avant garde, voices in alternative spaces/institutions are growing stronger by the day. Especially notable in this regard are folks who, in the old days, would have been apolitical or lazily liberal, waking up to the enormity of what is happening. Here’s a very recent example that really encouraged me — a hard-hitting piece on the regnant Maoism of Hollywood by a YouTuber with 700,000 subscribers:
Very heartening to see. Love the Bezmenov clip. Diana West has been right that the undermining of the U.S. has been a long planned and ongoing effort among Soviets and Communists and their sympathizers in U.S. politics, government, business, and entertainment. How ironic/tragic that the originators of the plan are long gone but their successors traitorously carry the plan out. When even Bill Maher says "enough is enough" perhaps there is hope in basic human rationality informed by the light of the spirit of God. Maybe people will see that Joe McCarthy was ultimately right. But will that be 80 years too late?
“the forces of cultural dissolution are so well funded.” Those “well funded forces” need to be identified, but few have the nerve to do it. For the most part, they parades as “secular”, “agnostic” or even “atheist”. But they are ethnic and religiously anti-Christian, and they command enormous wealth.
Jeffrey Tucker at Brownstone also notes the imminent collapse of the public school system. His conclusion:
“It might not be obvious right now but in a few years, we could all look back and observe that March 2020 marked the beginning of the end of the great Progressive experiment in public education. Something else is emerging now. This is not a story that any responsible person would have scripted but the end result, and despite all the carnage along the way, might be a better overall system for the next generation of students, parents, and teachers.”
There is great hope in privately funded schools that are independent from the influence of the federal government and teachers unions. There is some hope in public school systems that remain locally controlled and funded. There is no hope in public schools that are constrained by federal mandates and subsidies.
I somehow missed that--thanks! Very good. The one thing he doesn't address is what's happening to those kids who simply dropped out? Those are disproportionately inner city, i.e., black especially. This is a development that must surely be fueling the rise in crime. And will leave a large portion of the population otherwise unemployable because functionally illiterate and non-numerate.
Reading Turley on this just makes me sad. Government schools, under the threat of unions, will never serve students. That ship has sailed. The only so,union now is to dissolve the Dept of .Ed. & the unions, and start with local, small schools. 200 students max.
Will Schryver recently tweeted a section of a speech from Vladimir Putin from 2013, while asking how does one become the arch enemy of the elites of western civilization in the 21st century. If i didnt know who wrote it, I would have assumed it was a 1990's speech by a socially conservate American, perhaps Jerry Falwell or Pat Buchanan. Or even a Reagan speech. Nope--Putin condemning atheism, transgenderism, and pederasty. More than anything else, I am becoming convinced that this development in Kremlin rhetoric is what caused the Democrats from running for election on good relations with Russia to running for election smearing their opponents as Russian stooges.
I saw such ridiculous "we have always been at war with East Asia," shifts when I was in Afghanistan and all the peacenik foreign and intelligence service officers started telling me how Afghanistan was the good war in contradistinction to the bad Bush war in Iraq. Cynical Democratic Presidential Campaign talking points became national policy overnight.
Theres no reason for the allies to go along with these narratives, and they increasingly are not.
"While the rise of China belatedly provides a sense of purpose and priority to an internally fractured, overstretched, and utopian American republic, it could also be dangerously exploited by those seeking to transform the globe. Any disunity or dissent can then be considered unpatriotic."
The past is prologue. The Communist takeover in China led to a divisive and bitter search for internal enemies in America. Who Lost China? Well, as it turn out, no one, since we never had China in the first place, but the who lost China debate led to a serious hunt for internal enemies and two foreign wars that miscarried. Look for something similar if Ukraine really does go down this year. In the hypothetical case of a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan, you'd have the same sort of thing on steroids.
The current military threat from China is grossly exaggerated. The real Chinese threat to America is the influence they can buy among a highly corrupt and easily corruptible ruling class. Attempts to unify America by invoking a foreign threat won't work. Vietnam deeply divided America, and Korea would have if it had lasted just a little longer. The horror of 9-11 brought Americans together long enough to learn that their leaders didn't have a clue what to do about it.
China has done some pretty remarkable things, but unifying a country ruled by coercive utopians and lunatics is beyond even them.
"A republic by its very structure is fractured and tends to be chaotic in spirit, lacking external rivals. That is by democratic design, opposed to an enforced discipline that might lead to outright despotism." - YES! "Republics are also often united when faced with an external threat." - TRUE. But did the founders posit that an external threat is needed for the proper functioning of the Republic? - NO. In fact they warned against that. One might conclude that they did not value unity of governance as much as disunity. What might be the reason for that? I think we are witnessing it.
A possible hidden force in the culture wars is the booster shots. The more boostered seem to be strongly on one side. And the more they booster, the higher their death rate. And I don’t see any way they will change their views boosters are good, until they are hit personally with a catastrophic side effect, and May be not even then.
Depends on what the final death toll looks like, Ray. I believe it will be very high, but what "high" means, we just don't know. It also depends on how well the MSM and DS can hide it.
My gut feeling if high, is it won’t matter if the msm hides it or not, usually the dead don’t vote. And the more boosters you get, the higher your chance of adverse effects.
And longer term if the jab affects fertility, that will also reduce leftist voters.
And the joke of a conservative being a liberal that something bad happened too, may also apply.
My only "solution" if there is one is to keep ourselves strong as individuals and keep our kids and families as far away as possible from the evils of Wokeness and globalism. At the end of the day, no matter how painful this stuff is, none of it matters. We will die and hopefully be in a better place. In the meantime, fight your corner and stay strong.
The two go hand in hand. The notion that the top people in intel rise to those levels by dint of talent and professionalism is demonstrably false. Same as in foreign policy and other areas. In fact, any facet of the bureaucracy.
"Also, didn't our network of spies in China get rolled up? So someone was passing secrets. All our agents in China were executed--or am I wrong about that? Something similar happened with our spy network in Iran."
My understanding from public sources is that the China debacle resulted from sloppy security/tradecraft involving communications. I have zero inside knowledge.
Too much territory to fathom. The “Musking” of Twitter. That I will remember.
What is the balloon focus distracting from?
Ohio train is a possibility.
https://twitter.com/thevivafrei/status/1625163304648773634?cxt=HHwWhMC4ucja3o0tAAAA
It’s encouraging to note that, while many institutions, especially the legacy media, have been captured by the Leftist avant garde, voices in alternative spaces/institutions are growing stronger by the day. Especially notable in this regard are folks who, in the old days, would have been apolitical or lazily liberal, waking up to the enormity of what is happening. Here’s a very recent example that really encouraged me — a hard-hitting piece on the regnant Maoism of Hollywood by a YouTuber with 700,000 subscribers:
https://youtu.be/9gV2G1KfTmI
Very heartening to see. Love the Bezmenov clip. Diana West has been right that the undermining of the U.S. has been a long planned and ongoing effort among Soviets and Communists and their sympathizers in U.S. politics, government, business, and entertainment. How ironic/tragic that the originators of the plan are long gone but their successors traitorously carry the plan out. When even Bill Maher says "enough is enough" perhaps there is hope in basic human rationality informed by the light of the spirit of God. Maybe people will see that Joe McCarthy was ultimately right. But will that be 80 years too late?
“the forces of cultural dissolution are so well funded.” Those “well funded forces” need to be identified, but few have the nerve to do it. For the most part, they parades as “secular”, “agnostic” or even “atheist”. But they are ethnic and religiously anti-Christian, and they command enormous wealth.
Jeffrey Tucker at Brownstone also notes the imminent collapse of the public school system. His conclusion:
“It might not be obvious right now but in a few years, we could all look back and observe that March 2020 marked the beginning of the end of the great Progressive experiment in public education. Something else is emerging now. This is not a story that any responsible person would have scripted but the end result, and despite all the carnage along the way, might be a better overall system for the next generation of students, parents, and teachers.”
Read the whole thing here:
https://brownstone.org/articles/american-public-schools-rip/
There is great hope in privately funded schools that are independent from the influence of the federal government and teachers unions. There is some hope in public school systems that remain locally controlled and funded. There is no hope in public schools that are constrained by federal mandates and subsidies.
I somehow missed that--thanks! Very good. The one thing he doesn't address is what's happening to those kids who simply dropped out? Those are disproportionately inner city, i.e., black especially. This is a development that must surely be fueling the rise in crime. And will leave a large portion of the population otherwise unemployable because functionally illiterate and non-numerate.
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
I recently asked "What if they offered public education and no one came?" https://jonathanturley.org/2023/01/31/captives-or-consumers-public-education-could-be-facing-a-major-change/… That appears to be growing question in Seattle where many parents have had enough and are not coming back.
Reading Turley on this just makes me sad. Government schools, under the threat of unions, will never serve students. That ship has sailed. The only so,union now is to dissolve the Dept of .Ed. & the unions, and start with local, small schools. 200 students max.
Will Schryver recently tweeted a section of a speech from Vladimir Putin from 2013, while asking how does one become the arch enemy of the elites of western civilization in the 21st century. If i didnt know who wrote it, I would have assumed it was a 1990's speech by a socially conservate American, perhaps Jerry Falwell or Pat Buchanan. Or even a Reagan speech. Nope--Putin condemning atheism, transgenderism, and pederasty. More than anything else, I am becoming convinced that this development in Kremlin rhetoric is what caused the Democrats from running for election on good relations with Russia to running for election smearing their opponents as Russian stooges.
I saw such ridiculous "we have always been at war with East Asia," shifts when I was in Afghanistan and all the peacenik foreign and intelligence service officers started telling me how Afghanistan was the good war in contradistinction to the bad Bush war in Iraq. Cynical Democratic Presidential Campaign talking points became national policy overnight.
Theres no reason for the allies to go along with these narratives, and they increasingly are not.
"While the rise of China belatedly provides a sense of purpose and priority to an internally fractured, overstretched, and utopian American republic, it could also be dangerously exploited by those seeking to transform the globe. Any disunity or dissent can then be considered unpatriotic."
The past is prologue. The Communist takeover in China led to a divisive and bitter search for internal enemies in America. Who Lost China? Well, as it turn out, no one, since we never had China in the first place, but the who lost China debate led to a serious hunt for internal enemies and two foreign wars that miscarried. Look for something similar if Ukraine really does go down this year. In the hypothetical case of a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan, you'd have the same sort of thing on steroids.
The current military threat from China is grossly exaggerated. The real Chinese threat to America is the influence they can buy among a highly corrupt and easily corruptible ruling class. Attempts to unify America by invoking a foreign threat won't work. Vietnam deeply divided America, and Korea would have if it had lasted just a little longer. The horror of 9-11 brought Americans together long enough to learn that their leaders didn't have a clue what to do about it.
China has done some pretty remarkable things, but unifying a country ruled by coercive utopians and lunatics is beyond even them.
"A republic by its very structure is fractured and tends to be chaotic in spirit, lacking external rivals. That is by democratic design, opposed to an enforced discipline that might lead to outright despotism." - YES! "Republics are also often united when faced with an external threat." - TRUE. But did the founders posit that an external threat is needed for the proper functioning of the Republic? - NO. In fact they warned against that. One might conclude that they did not value unity of governance as much as disunity. What might be the reason for that? I think we are witnessing it.
Swag…
A possible hidden force in the culture wars is the booster shots. The more boostered seem to be strongly on one side. And the more they booster, the higher their death rate. And I don’t see any way they will change their views boosters are good, until they are hit personally with a catastrophic side effect, and May be not even then.
Depends on what the final death toll looks like, Ray. I believe it will be very high, but what "high" means, we just don't know. It also depends on how well the MSM and DS can hide it.
Agree on the death toll number.
My gut feeling if high, is it won’t matter if the msm hides it or not, usually the dead don’t vote. And the more boosters you get, the higher your chance of adverse effects.
And longer term if the jab affects fertility, that will also reduce leftist voters.
And the joke of a conservative being a liberal that something bad happened too, may also apply.
My only "solution" if there is one is to keep ourselves strong as individuals and keep our kids and families as far away as possible from the evils of Wokeness and globalism. At the end of the day, no matter how painful this stuff is, none of it matters. We will die and hopefully be in a better place. In the meantime, fight your corner and stay strong.
When I find myself turning negative, I remind myself- this is my temporary home.
"overpaid incompetents and bureaucrats"
The two go hand in hand. The notion that the top people in intel rise to those levels by dint of talent and professionalism is demonstrably false. Same as in foreign policy and other areas. In fact, any facet of the bureaucracy.
"Also, didn't our network of spies in China get rolled up? So someone was passing secrets. All our agents in China were executed--or am I wrong about that? Something similar happened with our spy network in Iran."
My understanding from public sources is that the China debacle resulted from sloppy security/tradecraft involving communications. I have zero inside knowledge.
Book review:
https://intelnews.org/2023/02/13/01-3254/
Thesis is there was a 4th high ranking spy for Russia, after Hanssen, etc.
Hanssen’s brother-in-law, FBI Special Agent Mark Wauck, is the author of this blog.