Ce ne sont pas l’économie

The global elite will fall in the end. The global elite can claim that l’économie est nous all they want, but it isn’t and it never has been.

The world is run by an international elite that lives in a rarified world of seemingly boundless power and luxury. Though the members of this elite consider their own power and luxury to be completely legitimate, it is not. It is the product of a system that’s rigged to benefit them while everybody else languishes in declining small cities and provincial towns, eking out a dreary existence, toiling away their lives in menial service-sector jobs or scraping by on disability checks while seeking out a modicum of fleeting joy in the dumbstruck haze of a painkiller high.

Unless something fundamental changes, the gap separating these worlds will only increase, economically, culturally, and psychologically. Republicans show every sign of continuing to pursue policies that actively make the economic problems worse. Centrist Democrats, meanwhile, appear to be both unwilling to propose a sweeping critique of the outlook and policies that got us to this point in the first place and inclined to dismiss the populist anger building all around us as an expression of atavistic prejudice.

This cannot last. At this rate, make no mistake: The global elite will fall.

Their parasite economy of finance-based ownership of real world property and produce rests entirely upon the false claims it generates upon the real economy. And all it takes to destroy the parasite economy is the mass refusal to recognize its claims, many of which are already known to be completely fictitious. See: the mortgage title scandal of 2008 onwards.

The parasite economy is already killing its host. It is like a drunken vampire who is too intoxicated to stop draining his victim. And once the host collapses, its component parts will turn on the parasites with a vengeance.

This isn’t a failure of capitalism, this is a tripartite failure of usury, fraud, and fundamental morality. The Alt-Right Revolution cometh.

Mailvox: what does Le Pen need to do?

What does Le Pen need to do in the brief time between now and May 7 to win the French election?

To win the French election, Marine Le Pen needs to convince the
anti-EU French Left that national sovereignty is more important
than the precise shape of domestic policy in the next few years.
This will be challenging, since one of the chief attributes of the
Left is its inability to think in the long term.

Blame the blameworthy

JM is disappointed in Ann Coulter’s decision to cancel her speech at Berkeley:

Ann Coulter has proven herself to be Ted Cruz; acts tough, promises to be a general and lead the charge, yet when the troops have their arms ready and are awaiting the command she chickens out. It’s not that people like her can’t be an ally, it’s that they can’t be trusted to stand their ground when things get tough. So if she doesn’t want to lead the charge others will just take over that responsibility from her.

TLM, on the other hand, is not:

I consider this a tactical retreat. Anne has been a more than a worthy adversary to Satan and his minions. I do not begrudge her for not being a point man in a scenario that had a very good probability of seeing violence. Anne is scrawny and probably represents Double XP to some antifata coward. We need some one like Mike to go there. Some that can take and give a punch. 

My perspective is closer to Q’s:

I don’t know, if you emphatically, publicly. state over and over that the speech will go on, no matter the cancellation, then the speech should go on. Hire Blackwater if need be, but to cancel like this at the last minute, really does give victory to mere threats of violence. To claim it doesn’t is to lie to oneself, or others…. ANTIFA was just handed a victory of enormous value. They punked the entire right, that is how they will see it. They were allowed to do so because the right has no real leadership at this time. My goodness, David French at NRO is simply beside himself with the possible ramifications of all this..he might do something rash, and tweet out a cuss word or something. Vox was absolutely right, Ann was betrayed by “conservatives”, until they are pushed out of the way, the left will continue to advance. Even with the GOP holding complete power over the federal govt, the left advances…while “conservatives” cower. Every site today on the right is lit up with: ought to, should be, there needs to be, why isn’t, how come, where is..” People are still in a state of mind that leads them to believe there is an “authority” that will stop all this unrest. they voted for law & order after all. When the entire point of ANTIFA is to make their vote meaningless.

That being said, I don’t blame Ann in the slightest for cancelling after being betrayed by her so-called allies who invited her. She’s not a general, she doesn’t promise to be, and while she is somewhat of an opinion leader, she has never built any sort of organization around her like the Proud Boys, the Dread Ilk, or Violent Solutions.

Did she talk a little tougher than she was able to back up? Yes, but then, what do you expect? She’s a woman, and women should not be leading these things. They will always tend to shrink from potential violence and fail to anticipate it because it is not really part of their world. Moldilocks wouldn’t have been out to collect 100 Nazi scalps if she’d believed for a second that a man might retaliate and hit her back.

In the meantime, I’m glad to see Gavin, Brittany, and the others are going to make an appearance and take on Antifa. I expect the VFM and Ilk who will be there to have their backs.

Open Brainstorm tonight

Just a reminder that if you want to know what Brainstorm is like, you have a chance to see for yourself tonight. We’ll be having an open Brainstorm about Infogalactic tonight at 7 PM Eastern. Rifleman and I will be talking about the latest additions to the project, what is currently in development, and what we plan to do next. You can register for it here.

Coulter cancels speech

Ann Coulter, quite understandably, has decided to cancel her scheduled Berkeley appearance:

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has canceled her speech planned for this week at the University of California’s Berkeley campus after a dispute with university officials, who feared violent protests, over whether a safe venue could be found. “There will be no speech,” she wrote in an email to Reuters on Wednesday, saying two conservative groups sponsoring her speech were no longer supporting her. “I looked over my shoulder and my allies had joined the other team,” she wrote. 

Never count on conservatives. They’ll usually find a way to cuck out somehow. I tend to doubt that Milo, with his backing from the Alt-Lite and Alt-Right, will see the need to do the same.

How did I miss that?

So, I was watching Red Night from the Babymetal concert at the Tokyo Dome when suddenly they broke into an excellent song that I’d never heard before. It turns out that Syncopation is only on the Japanese version of Metal Resistance. The guitars are great and the drumming is out-of-control, even for Babymetal.

And it is good. I don’t know that I’d be willing to give up From Dusk Till Dawn for it, but it is really good. Also, I found that I liked Yava! rather better after seeing it live. But while Red Night was excellent, kicking off with Road of Resistance and peaking with Karate, I think I would rather have gone to Black Night, as that’s when they featured Megitsune, No Rain No Rainbow, Twilight of the Metal Gods, and, appropriately enough, Onedari Daisuken.

BLACK BABYMETAL!

I don’t think anyone has ever been as deliriously happy on stage as Moa. She’s beaming pretty much the entire show on both nights. And Su has developed into a bona fide rock star. It’s also kind of awesome to see 55,000 Japanese erupt in exactly the same way everyone did in the small club in which we saw them.

Soiya soiya soiya soiya! One, two, one, two, three, let’s go!

Young Americans for freedom

At least, as long as they don’t have to fight for it or take any risks.

Young America’s Foundation (YAF) has pulled out of Ann Coulter’s Thursday event at UC Berkeley, blaming the college for allowing left-wing extremists to terrorize conservatives on campus. “When Young America’s Foundation confirmed Ann Coulter would speak at UC-Berkeley as part of YAF’s nationwide campus lecture program on April 27, we assumed UC Berkeley would take all steps necessary to ensure the safety of students attending the educational event,” the group declared in a blog post on Tuesday. “In the meantime we discovered that the University of California Police Department at Berkeley has an official ‘stand-down’ policy for any situation that develops on campus as long as the situation doesn’t involve the imminent loss of life, allowing the leftist thugs who have terrorized Berkeley’s campus to do so without consequence.”

“As of 4:00 p.m. today, Young America’s Foundation will not be moving forward with an event at Berkeley on April 27 due to the lack of assurances for protections from foreseeable violence from unrestrained leftist agitators,” they continued. “Berkeley should be ashamed for creating this hostile atmosphere.”

YAF added that they are still pushing forward with their lawsuit against the college, and that the group “looks forward to the day when First Amendment freedoms are enjoyed by conservative students.”

“Ms. Coulter may still choose to speak in some form on campus, but Young America’s Foundation will not jeopardize the safety of its staff or students,” they concluded. “For information on Ms. Coulter’s plans, please contact her directly.”

I seem to recall Ben Franklin had something to say about those who value the safety of their staff and students more than their liberty….

This  is yet another reason why the Alt-Right is replacing the conservative movement. Conservatives are social cowards who are manifestly unwilling to fight for their sacred principles against internal enemies. Sure, they’ll bravely fight external enemies to the death so long as they have the State’s blessing, but they cave every time they don’t have its approval.

That, in the end, is the fatal weakness of the conservative movement; the need of its members for the approval of authority. As long as the Left can wield the trappings of authority, conservatives will fall in line.


“Berkeley should be ashamed for creating this hostile atmosphere.”

For shame, Berkeley. For shame! Strong words indeed.

A belated discovery

The media belatedly discovers that Turkey’s AKP is not a pro-Western party that will serve as a model for Islamic democracy:

the Western party line remained unchanged over many years:


“Turkey is now a vibrant, competitive democracy….” —New York Times, June 8, 2010


“A vibrant democracy…an example of reform in the region….” —Foreign Policy, May 26, 2011


“Regionally, a vibrant, democratic Turkey no longer under the military’s thumb, can offer the Arab world a true model…. The Turkish model could also provide a model of how Islamic factions can coexist alongside liberal and secular groups, despite their clashing worldviews….”—Haaretz, August 15, 201


“A vibrant democracy…led by Islam’s equivalent to the Christian Democrats….” —Financial Times, September 15, 2011


“A template that effectively integrates Islam, democracy and vibrant economics….” — New York Times, February 5, 2011


“Turkey is poised to become one of the most successful countries of the 21st century, a model of Muslim democracy and a powerful force for regional peace… —Boston Globe, June 14, 2011


“One of the most remarkable success stories of the past decade…a vibrant democracy and dynamic economy under the Muslim equivalent of Christian Democrats”…—Financial Times, April 19, 20121

The Justice and Development Party, known as the AKP and widely (if meaninglessly) described as a “moderately Islamist” party, came to power in 2002, at which point the rubicund encomiums from the press and foreign spokesmen began. I began visiting Istanbul in 2003, moved there a year or so later, stayed until 2013, and left after the so-called Gezi protests, when, only then, the cheery music in the media fairly abruptly stopped.

The West’s collective assessment of Turkey throughout that time, displayed in official diplomatic statements, the mainstream press, and just as often in the specialized media, was notably weird and notably wrong. It was either the cause or the consequence of an exceptionally poor understanding of Turkey by Western publics and their policymakers. It resulted in the crafting of policies toward Turkey that were neither in Turkey’s interests nor the West’s, and helped, at least to some extent, to usher in the disaster before us today.

Living in a state of constant denial while clinging to the current Narrative is seldom an effective strategy. I can’t help but notice that absolutely no one is talking about Turkey joining the EU anymore.

The Media Bubble is real

However, the author’s attempts to blame geography and economics notwithstanding, the reality of the geographic concentration of the media in the big Left-dominated cities in no way excuses their dishonesty, partisanship, and attempts to enforce their ever-mutating narratives.

To some conservatives, Trump’s surprise win on November 8 simply bore out what they had suspected, that the Democrat-infested press was knowingly in the tank for Clinton all along. The media, in this view, was guilty not just of confirmation bias but of complicity. But the knowing-bias charge never added up: No news organization ignored the Clinton emails story, and everybody feasted on the damaging John Podesta email cache that WikiLeaks served up buffet-style. Practically speaking, you’re not pushing Clinton to victory if you’re pantsing her and her party to voters almost daily.

The answer to the press’ myopia lies elsewhere, and nobody has produced a better argument for how the national media missed the Trump story than FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, who pointed out that the ideological clustering in top newsrooms led to groupthink. “As of 2013, only 7 percent of [journalists] identified as Republicans,” Silver wrote in March, chiding the press for its political homogeneity. Just after the election, presidential strategist Steve Bannon savaged the press on the same point but with a heartier vocabulary. “The media bubble is the ultimate symbol of what’s wrong with this country,” Bannon said. “It’s just a circle of people talking to themselves who have no fucking idea what’s going on.”

But journalistic groupthink is a symptom, not a cause. And when it comes to the cause, there’s another, blunter way to think about the question than screaming “bias” and “conspiracy,” or counting D’s and R’s. That’s to ask a simple question about the map. Where do journalists work, and how much has that changed in recent years? To determine this, my colleague Tucker Doherty excavated labor statistics and cross-referenced them against voting patterns and Census data to figure out just what the American media landscape looks like, and how much it has changed.

The results read like a revelation. The national media really does work in a bubble, something that wasn’t true as recently as 2008. And the bubble is growing more extreme. Concentrated heavily along the coasts, the bubble is both geographic and political. If you’re a working journalist, odds aren’t just that you work in a pro-Clinton county—odds are that you reside in one of the nation’s most pro-Clinton counties. And you’ve got company: If you’re a typical reader of Politico, chances are you’re a citizen of bubbleville, too.

It’s not an Either/Or situation. The media concentration on the coastal urban centers is real. As is the fact that the Democrat-infested press was knowingly and proudly in the tank for Clinton all along. This is just another attempt to deceive the public and reshape the narrative through half-truths.

The article is an exhibition of the very thing it seeks to disprove.

Invasion and convergence

Apparently we’ll soon discover how completely converged the Methodists are:

Karen Oliveto clutched a friend’s hand, closed her eyes and wept when she learned last year she had been elected a bishop of the United Methodist Church. Oliveto, who is married to another woman, had become the denomination’s first openly gay bishop.

Within minutes, a formal complaint was filed challenging her election as contrary to the church ban on clergy who are “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” – a petition that the highest Methodist judicial authorities agreed to consider. On Tuesday, the court will take up the closely watched case, the latest flashpoint over LGBT rights in a denomination splintering over the Bible and homosexuality.

“It highlights very greatly that we are two different churches and that the real difference is whether or not we’re going to live by the covenant that we each have agreed to,” said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, who leads Good News, a caucus of evangelical Methodists that has lobbied to uphold current teaching. Said Oliveto, “I’m in deep prayer, reminding myself of what God has called me to do.”

Oliveto, who is based in the Denver area, will attend the hearing in Newark, New Jersey, accompanied by fellow bishops from the church’s Western Jurisdiction, her wife, mother and childhood pastor. LGBT clergy and their supporters plan to pray outside and wear T-shirts listing the first names only of gay clergy who would risk losing their ministerial credentials by coming out.

The goal is to underscore the human cost of church policy, said the Rev. Lea Matthews of the LGBT advocacy group Methodists in New Directions. Prayer vigils are planned in the Methodist Mountain Sky Area region, which Oliveto leads, while others will join a prayer vigil online.

The court, or Judicial Council, is expected to issue a ruling a few days later.

The 12.8 million-member church, the third-largest in the U.S., was already in turmoil over same-sex relationships when Oliveto was elected. Methodists approved language in 1972 calling same-gender relationships “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The top church policy-making body, or General Conference, has upheld that policy ever since, even as LGBT rights gained acceptance and other mainline Protestants, including the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), approved same-sex marriage. In recent years, the Methodists have seen their greatest growth overseas, especially in Africa, among more theologically conservative people, who have been standing with U.S. evangelical Methodists against recognizing same-gender relationships.

Deeply frustrated, Methodist LGBT advocates have stepped up pressure for new policies, holding same-sex weddings in defiance of church prohibitions and coming out as gay and lesbian from the pulpit. Conservatives responded by intensifying demands for church discipline over such actions. In one high-profile case, the Rev. Frank Schaefer was tried by a church court and defrocked for presiding at the wedding of his son to another man. Schaefer was later reinstated as a minister on an appeal of the ruling.

This really isn’t that hard. Any acceptance of same-sex relationships is sufficient to not only defrock a minister or a deacon, much less a bishop, but merits immediate expulsion from the church. Any so-called “Christian” church that embraces formalized sin, of any kind, is clearly nothing of the sort. This is not even remotely debatable.

Conservatives need to understand that the infiltrators are not seeking acceptance, and that they are not misguided, but they are there to destroy the organization from within. It’s not as if Christians weren’t warned of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, after all.

And furthermore, from a practical standpoint alone, it should be obvious that every single church that accepts female ministers, in direct contradiction to Scripture, has set itself on the wide and easy path that leads to worldly approval, declining attendance, societal irrelevance, and eventual destruction.

If those who wish to formally embrace everything from same-sex relationships to gluttony wish to set up their own organizations to pretend to worship the gods in whom they obviously don’t believe, there is nothing stopping them from doing so. So, ask yourself this: why is it so very important to them that they not only be permitted to join existing churches, but assume leadership of them and change their long-standing policies?