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Sunday, June 4, 2023

Why Vox Day? Insights and Perspective! A good way to start DaDay - EVERY DAY!

Nobody cares what the excuses are this time. There are always excuses for not doing the right thing, for not doing what you were literally elected to do. But we are rapidly approaching the point that most actual Americans would rather take their chances with the whole thing burning down and fighting it out with the invaders among the glowing ashes of Clown World.



My expectation is that a Gen X leader with Zoomer followers is most likely Western civilization’s best hope for a pathway out of this nightmare. And as the madness of Clown World rises and becomes more and more obvious to the average individual of every generation, the likelihood of various potential candidates rising to the historical occasion increases.

The self-immolation of the Clown World corpocracy is serving to create one global business opportunity after another.


The USA is no longer the USA of 1980 or 1950, much less 1920. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Because both Russia and China lack diversity relative to the USA, they now possess all the advantages of having a smarter and more capable work force that the USA did prior to 1965.

The good news is that all of the available evidence to date indicates that AI will essentially be the posthuman equivalent of white supremacist hardcore gamers, which is probably why all the SJWs in tech are so terrified by it.

The anonymous questioner suggests two possible explanations: demons or aliens with future tech. Needless to say, there is considerably more evidence in support of the former. And, as we have been reliably informed, there are no coincidences.

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Thank You For Your Servitude - by Donald Jeffries

 Hapless Chess Pieces vs Genuine Heroes

I wrote this last Memorial Day, on my regular Substack, where you can subscribe here: https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/ It reflects my sentiments about our lust for war, which the great Smedley Butler so accurately described as a “racket.”

I don’t want to spoil anyone’s Memorial Day. To those who lost loved ones in uniform, your pain and tragedy is real, and you have my sympathy. I prefer the view that my friend Cindy Sheehan holds. She lost a young son in our senseless Middle East misadventures. They couldn’t assuage her with medals and patriotic rhetoric.

In my view, the last justified war that America participated in was the War of 1812. Our shores were invaded, and we were directly attacked. That was the only war of defense America has ever fought. I’m no pacifist; we all have the right to defend ourselves, and that includes the country itself. Some of you might respond, “Hey, what about Pearl Harbor? What about those dirty sneaky rotten Japs?” Please read my book Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963 for a detailed examination of FDR’s foreknowledge of the event. He might as well have been flying a plane himself.

Those who fought for independence against the Redcoats, and those who actually defended the homeland during the War of 1812, were heroes in my estimation. But I don’t get this labeling of anyone who dies in combat as a “hero.” None of the nearly million young Americans who lost their lives in Abraham Lincoln’s senseless internal conflict were heroic. Lincoln instituted an unconstitutional draft, so these boys were forced to fight. Unless they had money, of course. There was that whole “Rich man’s exemption” thing. No one who died at Gettysburg or Antietam was wealthy.

Did the youngsters killed in the Spanish-American War, precipitated by the first modern false flag, die for any reason whatsoever? How about those who occupied and committed atrocities in the Philippines, or Haiti? I’ll have a lot to say about all that in the upcoming Hidden History 3: More From the American Memory Hole. World War I? Don’t make me laugh. Even the court historians can’t come up with a reason for that pointless slaughter. But lots of bankers and One Percenters increased their fortunes from it, as the great Smedley Butler pointed out.

Woodrow Wilson brought back John Adams’ unconstitutional sedition laws, throwing lots of WWI protesters into prison. When Eugene Debs and others challenged this legally, the Supreme Court upheld Wilson. And that’s where that whole “yelling fire in a crowded theater” asterisk on free speech came from. Vaunted “liberal” Oliver Wendell Holmes made up the expression to defend the imprisonment of war protesters. So protesting a senseless war is yelling fire in a crowded theater. Got it.

By World War II, Americans had learned their lesson. They dutifully planted their victory gardens, bought their bonds, became air raid wardens, and idolized the “Greatest Generation” soldiers like no others before. Uncle Sam Wants You! Again, read my book for just a sampling of the atrocities committed by these “heroes” on the Germans and the Japanese. That doesn’t mean that the Germans and the Japanese didn’t commit atrocities on them. It means that non-defensive wars are full of horrific, criminal behavior on all sides.

Read about the atrocities committed by the Americans in Korea. My writings demonstrate that the “scorched earth” strategy began by Lincoln and his psychotic generals like Sherman and Sheridan set the precedent for all American wars to come. Rape and outright theft, targeting of civilians, destruction of property. You will find eyewitness accounts of this “total war” philosophy in every conflict America has been involved in. The videos documenting this kind of conduct landed then Bradley Manning in prison. No one defames our “heroes.”

Like Cindy Sheehan, the family of former NFL player Pat Tillman couldn’t be bought off with medals and platitudes of bravery. Eventually, the government admitted that Tillman, who had quickly grown to oppose American involvement there, had actually been killed by “friendly fire.” Until Oliver Stone’s film Platoon, Americans had no idea of exactly how common this is. In Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, our troops not only killed their comrades with carelessness, they sometimes targeted them for murder. Give a boy a gun and all that.

Especially since 9/11, after which we basically became America 2.0, our military has become almost sanctified. “Support the Troops!” While I’m writing this kind of radical contrarianism, most Americans today are tipping the hat to every military veteran by proclaiming, “Thank you for your service.” Exactly what are we thanking them for? Occupying smaller sovereign nations who have never attacked us? Urinating on corpses, or playing soccer with their decapitated heads, as was done in Iraq and Afghanistan? “Protecting” us from those who couldn’t hurt us if they wanted to? “Defending our freedom,” which our government is doing its best to crush?

Of course, I know that most soldiers, like most cops, are not bad people. Some of them probably go into the service with grand and noble ideals, and believe that they are defending us from the bad guys. Like the population at large, they continue to fall for the hackneyed propaganda that H.L. Mencken described as “an endless series of hobgoblins.” And every one of their deaths is tragic. But not heroic. Pointless. Led to the slaughter by bankers and chicken hawks who never saw a battlefield.

I mean no disrespect to anyone. I know there are some great people in the military. But enabling the senseless foreign policy that uses these young people in uniform as expendable cannon fodder ensures that it will continue. Mindlessly waving the flag, and cheering in parades is feeding the monster. “Patriotism” is to the Military Industrial Complex like blood is to a vampire. They need the cheers. And the approval. If you agree that those dying in these aggressive nation building wars are heroes, then you are saying the war policy is heroic.

The whole antiwar movement in the ‘60s amounted to nothing. I think the marches against the Vietnam war went on for about eight years or so, before we finally withdrew our troops. And those hippies who understandably didn’t want to lose their lives senselessly in that conflict, went on to applaud subsequent wars which were just as senseless. Look how many of them now are urging a war against Russia. Russia is no Iraq. Long live World War 3! We need more “heroes!” And the “I Stand with Ukraine” thing is predicated on the idea that Ukraine itself is heroic.

And the military worship is now combined with Identity Politics. The NFL has been receiving taxpayer funds for a long time now, for what amounts to military commercials before games. These rituals have absolutely nothing to do with sports, and are in-your-face state propaganda. Colin Kaepernick might have had a point, if he’d led players in kneeling during the military productions, and not during the National Anthem. And this military worship happens right alongside the players wearing pink and the sports industry being as “Woke” as the rest of corporate America. You can be “cancelled” for opposing war, or for being “racist.”

This whole “Thank you for your service” mantra has been extended in recent years to our militarized police forces. Sure, the police have come under a lot of criticism, but almost all of it is channeled within proper margins by the Social Justice Warriors. Thus, nothing about their harassment of motorists, planting of drugs, or violence against little girls and elderly people in wheelchairs. All the vitriol revolves around “racism,” and the horrible things done to Black people.

The Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, during which property was burned and destroyed, people killed, and businesses looted, was allowed to happen. No one even tried to stop it. The police stood down. The “racist” police. Some even took a knee with the demonstrators. None unleashed the kind of fury they’re renowned for, if their target is a skateboarder kid or a homeless person drunk or high on drugs. And most recently, this kind of cowardice was impressed upon the public conscience with the events in Uvalde, where the police did nothing for an hour while we are told a gunman was inside a classroom killing children.

You can bet those same police would have drawn their taser or their gun, if a confused citizen who was stopped while driving, for a typically nonsensical reason, “talked back,” cited his constitutional rights, or tried to flee from them. Someday I may write a book about the transgressions of our men in blue over the years. Far more people have had negative interactions with the police than positive ones. Far too many encounters have been deadly. And the citizens killed by police misconduct were just as “heroic” as our fallen boys in far flung lands.

Some sheeple actually thank police officers for their “service,” too. They find excuses for their outrageous behavior just as easily as their law enforcement superiors do. That will be really difficult in the Uvalde case, but I have confidence in the sheeple. They consistently avoid critical thinking, no matter what. And if any police officer is held accountable for not doing the job we pay them to do, it will be about as rare as, well I used to say, as an overweight Victoria’s Secret model. Except they actually have overweight Victoria’s Secret models now, so pick your analogy. Asian quarterbacks?

Our police forces have long been militarized, so I guess it’s appropriate that they come in for some of that misguided worship, too. Just like this country hasn’t won a war since World War II, despite machinery and equipment the world has never seen, our police boast military-grade equipment, and yet cannot seem to stop violent crime. They won’t even approach an eighteen year old firing shots in a school, we are told. I remember some of the same criticisms being leveled at the police during the Columbine school shooting. Was anyone ever punished there?

The courts have ruled, since the 1980s, that the police are not obligated to protect the public. So that whole “protect and serve” thing is a lie. The Supreme Court has upheld this. Expecting the cops to save you from danger is beyond naive. You’ve been told they aren’t there to protect you. Everything they do reinforces that point. But it is perfectly acceptable for them to harass you. Or steal your property under asset forfeiture laws, which again the Supreme Court has upheld. During that whole “defund the police” thing, did you hear any protests about that?

Maybe I’ve been watching too much Norm MacDonald. He was about the only person I’ve ever seen who publicly took on the teachers. He came up with a great comedy bit about how teachers are definitely not “heroes.” But some of the same sheeple will adorn teachers with heroic qualities as well. And they don’t even have to face the very real threat of death that soldiers and police officers do. They haven’t really been thanked for their “service,” though. Maybe some Social Justice Warrior will read this, and start a campaign to do just that.

I’m not really sure what a hero is, especially when the term is watered down so much now. How about the “First Responders?” It’s unclear exactly who is included as a “First Responder,” but they definitely are considered heroic and they definitely get “thanked” a lot. The biggest hero I ever met in my life was a guy who was dying from cancer, I think his name was Bill Kratzert. He worked part-time alongside me in a dead end blue-collar job. He toiled at that physical labor almost until he died, because his family needed that part-time income, which meant he was working every day, and every holiday, just so he could pay his outrageous medical bills. He had an upbeat attitude, too. Everything you want in a real hero. Now that’s a profile in courage.

Another of my heroes was my old boyhood chum Billy Myles. Kind of a wild youth, like most of us were back in the days of America 1.0, Bill grew into a faithful Catholic who obviously adored his wife and two daughters. A few years back, the car he was riding in with his daughter was hit, and became engulfed in flames. His daughter was trapped, and Billy plunged back into the vehicle to remove her, burning to death himself in the process. As I told his family, all death is sad, especially when it comes too soon, but in this case they should feel really proud. Billy Myles was a real hero.

Bradley/Chelsea Manning. Julian Assange. Edward Snowden. All courageous whistleblowers who exposed corruption, even though they knew they’d be punished, and were not generally supported by the same public that can’t wait to salute far more dubious “heroes.” There are an untold number of whistleblowers the world doesn’t even know of, who also took a stand against wrongdoing and paid the price. Any and every whistleblower is a hero in my book.

So there are plenty of real heroes. Average people forced to work two jobs because the economy is rigged against them. Forced to take an extra job because they had the rotten luck to get deathly sick, and our Banana Republic “healthcare” system required them to pay so much, while still not healing them, for their “services.” Maybe we should be thanking doctors and nurses for their “service.” Actually, I think doctors and nurses are considered “First Responders,” so never mind. As should be obvious from what I’ve written before, I believe that much of what they do is the antithesis of true heroism.

Some people have different definitions of heroism. I think that parents sitting up all night with a crying baby, on a regular basis, without getting cranky themselves, and then going to work with no sleep, is pretty heroic. During my volunteer work, I met parents who were dealing with unimaginable challenges raising children born with severe disabilities. They had positive attitudes, and loved their children as much as any of us love our “normal” kids. That’s pretty damn heroic in my book. And with all the vaccines causing obvious increases in children on the autistic spectrum, there are bound to be more of these genuine heroes.

And how about the people dealing with those challenges directly? Helen Keller, born deaf, dumb, and blind, somehow managed to become a renowned writer and activist. Hard to be more heroic than that. Just missing one of our indispensable senses is hard enough. How about those who were scalded by hot water burns, or in a fire, especially as children? You have to be heroic under those circumstances just to go to school, and later work, and encounter the typical cruel jokes the sheeple are renowned for. The same sheeple who call soldiers, cops and “First Responders” heroes. Some of them are probably still laughing at Helen Keller “jokes.”

I know I’m a contrarian. I can’t just salute the flag and think of the guys at Normandy. They went through hell, but they were more hapless than heroic. They were put in a terrible situation by warmongers who profit from bloodshed. Burying them in a flag draped coffin doesn’t change that fact. Giving them crosses and medals doesn’t change that fact. As Harry Patch, who would have told you he wasn’t a hero, the last surviving veteran of World War I put it, “War is organized murder and nothing else.”

https://djeffries.substack.com/p/thank-you-for-your-servitude 

bionic mosquito: He Gets Us

 But do we get Him?

He Gets Us is a movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible and his confounding love and forgiveness.

Jesus is described by the folks at He Gets Us as…

…a man who taught and practiced unconditional love, peace, and kindness; who spent his life defending the poor and the marginalized; a man who even forgave his killers while they executed him unjustly…

They are not looking at the same Jesus I see, the one found in Scripture.  More precisely, they are looking at only one aspect of Jesus, dividing Him from the whole and therefore turning Him into a weapon against Christ and Christianity.

Let’s take a look:

Matthew 11: 21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.  

These cities did not repent; the day of judgement for them will be troubling, but at least not as troubling as it will be for Chorazin and Bethsaida.  In any case, His love cannot be separated from His judgement. And He will judge righteously.

23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.  24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

Brought down to hell.  This sure fits the “confounding love” part, but not in the way modern society understands the term.  Jesus’s love is confounding, because it requires righteous judgement.

Matthew 12: 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Vipers!  This doesn’t sound kind.

Matthew 15: 4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

Cursed to death?

John 3: 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

So much talk of condemnation, fire, and judgement.  Condemned for loving darkness, because of their evil deeds.

John 8: 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 

To describe someone as a son of the devil doesn’t fit the “He Gets Us” caricature.

John 15: 6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

Burned…in fire.

Revelation 2: 20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.  

Sounds mild compared to what is forced down His servant’s throats today. 

21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.  

No sign of repentance today either.  So, what are the loving, righteous consequences?

22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.  23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. 

Yes, He does get us.  But do those who say this actually get Him?

Revelation 3: 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent

Those whom Jesus loves, he rebukes and chastens.  I haven’t seen this message in the He Gets Us literature.  But love includes rebuking and chastening.  To be followed by repentance.

Revelation 21: 8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Here we go again with the fire and brimstone.

And we haven’t even come to the Old Testament Jesus.  OK, a couple of examples:

Judges 6: 16 And the Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.

Smite?

Joshua 6: 2 And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.

And when the wall fell?  Love, in any wormy way that term is used today?  Hardly:

Joshua 6: 21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

Conclusion

Yes, Jesus offered “confounding love and forgiveness.”  But His love required truth and justice. 

If we want to speak of Jesus for our time and in this world, perhaps the focus should be on His message to the sinner, the unrepentant.  Perhaps the focus should be on how the sinner is called to live by Jesus:

Matthew 5: 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.  7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.  8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.  9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.  

Instead of allowing Jesus’s message of love to be turned to acceptance of and even affirmation of license, perhaps some focus on sin and hell could be offered.  The word that keeps coming to mind is repentance.

Repentance: this is what those who claim He Gets Us should, instead, be calling the world to.

http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2023/05/he-gets-us.html

The Genius of Vladimir Putin? by JULIAN MACFARLANE

 Is Vladimir Putin a genius?

What other statesman can claim his accomplishments? \No other leader in a hundred years has been so successful— turning around a country mired in war, chaos and corruption in just a few years and building on that progress.

From a failed state, Russia has progressed to being strong enough to challenge the American Empire and Europe in a proxy war in the Ukraine — and a global economic and diplomatic war — and win in both cases. With China, Russia is creating a new, fairer, more just multipolar international order.

Yes, those figures are just until 2013.

Economic War

Putin was making steady progress. But then everything changed.

In 2014, the Empire, under Tsar Barak Obama, imposed sanctions and continued to mount economic warfare year by year.

But the economic attack achieved the opposite of what it was supposed to-0-exacerbating Western economic decline while accelerating Russian infrastructural and industrial growth.

If you look at figures posted all over the Internet, you will see that the West sees the Russian economy through the lens of neoliberal economics.

The fact is that American sanctions have reduced Russian imports such that Russia has been forced to create an autarkic economy, that is largely self-sufficient and becoming more so every year. From being a net importer of foodstuffs, Russia went to being a net exporter.

Now, athough imports from the West have fallen, Russia gets all it needs in key sectors from other suppliers—while its exports have risen. New industries are growing up to replace the goods once supplied by Western companies. Below, 2022.

Is Russia suffering?

Moscow was ranked third in the UN–HABITAT City Prosperity Index. UN experts analyzed the following developments in 29 major cities of the world: infrastructure, equity and social inclusion, quality of life, productivity, environmental sustainability and urban governance and legislation. 

Moscow also ranked first in the Quality of Life Dimension Ranking, which accounts for a total of 14 indicators, such as health, education, recreation, safety and others. 

Sorry, New York doesn’t even rank.

While Russia industrializes, the US dedollarizes— although the brown stuff has yet to hit the fan and he effects are not yet apparent. A major recession in the US economy will however, get…ummm… messy!

Once dollar share drops to 40%, the US economy, which is hugely financialized, with a compromised industrial infrastructure and cosmic debt, may very well collapse.

QOL? Forget that!

Financial collapse could lead to internal conflict — which we already see, with the country more and more divided.

That’s bad for the US, of course and also dangerous for the world, given the delusional state of American culture and a leader who constantly confuses his car keys and the nuclear keys.

Of course, as long as the US doesn’t start firing off nuclear missiles—which is less likely than wars of secession or an invasion of Canada or Mexico —or something equally crazy—the world as a whole will be better off.

It will be mostly thanks to one man — Vladimir Putin, who was willing to go the distance with the global bully.

In a street fight, it isn’t always the bigger guy who wins. Nor even trained boxers or MMA fighters. That’s because in street fights there are no rules. What matters is strategy.

The Tao of Vladimir Putin

One of my earliest articles on Substack was the Tao of Vladimir Putinwhich was hugely popular and republished on Medium.com, Global Research, Dissident Voice and other places.

Putin himself has credited his experience with martial arts—judo especially, but also combat Sambo—a changing his life.

Judo changed my way of thinking, my view of life, and my interactions with other people.

I have lived in Japan for many years, and I have studied Judo, Akiko `Karate, and Shorinji Kenpo (a mix of kung-fu and aiki-jutsu. Every martial art has advantages and disadvantages, as Bruce Lee noted. But as he said, what really mattersis state of mind. Or maybe just “mind”. Your personal “Tao”.

While the US and NATO are nominally much more powerful than Russia, Russia is winning through strategy.

Of course, some will argue that Russia is not so much winning as its enemies are losing —through over -confidence and lack of thought.

If Putin has “genius”, it is his ability to think holistically; not just short-term as in the West— but long term. He connects the dots.

Putin has vision. As all geniuses do. The US needs its own Putin.

https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/the-genius-of-vladimir-putin?utm_medium=email